Non-Formal Education and Street Youth Empowerment: Pedagogy and Practice of Two Brazilian Non-Governmental Organizations

Abstract

Historically, many initiatives designed to assist marginalized populations in Brazil have emerged through civil society. More specifically, for the case of children and adolescents, it has been grassroots and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), at the local and national level, that have played a crucial role in not only defending the rights of destitute children and adolescents but also in creating programs to serve the needs of this vulnerable population. In this light, my aim through two ethnographic case studies is to investigate how the pedagogical approaches and non-formal education (NFE) programs provided by two NGOs foster the potential educational sites for today's street youths in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to become empowered socially, culturally, economically and politically. The two cases also serve as a point of entry to understand these urban youths as a subculture.