ADCAM Current Programs
Wider Community Needs
In its efforts to provide educational opportunities for the children of the poor in Manaus, the Association for the Cohesive Development of the Amazon (ADCAM) found challenges that required them to respond to wider community needs. 
For example, many children would not stay in school because they had to work to help sustain their families. ADCAM developed programs to help parents in general and mothers in particular, learn crafts and services to upgrade their skills so they could earn more money and their children could stay in school.
One of ADCAM's main organizational principles is learning that is based on continuing research and response to community needs. This is the basis for the development of its programs.
Pre-Youth Program for Social
and Educational Support
This program helps at-risk children and youth from the ages of 7 – 16 living in the poor neighborhoods around the city of Manaus. It provides approximately 200 children with safe haven from the streets before and after school, activities in sports, art, theater, dance, basic education and learning skills, citizenship, and health education. It also provides educational support for their public school attendance through tutoring services and counseling for them and their teachers. This program includes the services of a multi-disciplinary team of teachers, social workers, psychologists and reviewers, who plan, execute and evaluate all activities.
Initiatives of the Pre-Youth for Community Service - An interesting source for outreach programs has been suggestions of the children in the Pre-Youth program. Once they combine education with the sense of compassion they've developed from their own hardships, they have a natural tendency to want to extend some of the benefits they have received back to their own community.
For example, this year, with the help of their teachers, they organized a day-long "Health Fair" held at the school grounds and open to people from the surrounding area. They brought together volunteers from the army, the city government and other public and private organizations to provide various free services, such as immunizations, hair cuts, health education, dental care, counseling, talks on AIDS and other public health issues, and the issuance of identity cards (necessary for any official matter, such as marriage or registering property). Around 1,000 people from nearby neighborhoods attended and received the free services.
topProgram for the Eradication of Child Labor
ADCAM has agreements with government organizations at the federal, state and municipal levels to assist children who fall outside the system of formal education because they work during school hours. The program gives working children access to after-school programs in cultural activities, sports, arts and recreation. Then it works with families to orient and support them with social and educational opportunities designed to help them understand the importance of education, as well as practical training to generate more family income without the need for child labor, always with the intent to eventually enroll children in school as full-time students. The Program currently services 50 adolescents.
Programs for Income Generation
ADCAM also offers courses for the wider community to upgrade skills and learn crafts, whether or not they have a child enrolled in the program. Women, in particular, have availed themselves of these courses to learn to make handicrafts they can sell, or home services they can provide, such as skilled home care for the elderly. Since many poor women work as low paid domestics, in this program they upgrade their skills as "Home Managers" and learn to operate email, fax machines, prepare cuts of meat for the freezer, how to set formal tables, receive guests and other such skills that give them an increased sense of self-esteem and confidence about how to work in the homes of city dwellers and to command higher pay for such services.
Juvenile Assistance Program
Responding to the request of government organizations, ADCAM collaborates with various institutions to assist the education of juvenile offenders. This effort supports juvenile offenders from 12 - 18 years old in a social education "assisted liberty" program of community service. Coordinators of this program guide and support adolescents while they perform their community services. Through good citizenship and service, this program acts as a way to educate, lift self-esteem and reintroduce these young people into the life of society. This collaboration with government institutions currently serves 20 young people.
Masrour Vocational School
This institution was created through a long process of consultation with people and organizations in the local area which it serves. Working in this way with the local constituents is one of the fundamental operating principles of the Association for the Cohesive Development of the Amazon (ADCAM). Through such consultation, it was determined that there was a need for quality educational programs based on universally accepted moral principles.
Today, the Masrour Vocational School serves 500 students from pre-school through high school in the poor neighborhoods of Manaus. The school's method of education is to create conditions where students can develop the capacity for life-long learning and for participating more effectively in the social, political, cultural and spiritual life of the community, in order to exercise good citizenship and contribute to an advancing and more equal and humane society. The school serves all children of whatever race, religion or background. It is important to note that although the students come from poor families, 50% of them proudly pay their own full tuition, another 25% pay partial tuition, and only 25% require a full scholarship.
Abrar Library
Another initiative of ADCAM, the Abrar Library was constructed on school grounds with support of the local community and international organizations. The library is an important resource not only for the students of Masrour Vocational School, but also for the whole district of Sao Jose and environs. The Abrar Library is the first library open to the public in the east zone of Manaus. With 1700 titles and 2200 volumes, the library benefits the entire community, offering access also for private study and to public schools.
Services for the Elderly
Because education at the Masrour Vocational School is based on moral principles, the children often perform projects of community service. These projects have resulted in the natural development of new programs offered to the community. For example, one year the students decided to honor the elderly and had a party for the older members of the surrounding neighborhood. It was so touching and such a success, that a psychologist in attendance offered her services to come once a week to give talks to help improve the quality of the lives of the elderly residents. Later, a physical therapist offered to come on the same day to lead exercise classes.
Based on these volunteer services, ADCAM developed a continuing program of recreation, education and nutrition that now serves 70 elderly people, who have told the directors that they count the days until the next time they can get together at the school. They say this program has given them the sense they are still important and has helped them create friendships and interactions that lift their spirits and improve their overall health. Recently they asked the directors for classes to learn to read and write.
Tahirih College of Education
The idea to found the Tahirih College of Education arose after more than 10 years of learning and maturation in providing educational services in the east zone of Manaus. Two simultaneous developments supported the initiative. First, little children who had entered ADCAM's educational programs a decade before had now finished their elementary and high school studies and had a natural interest in continuing their education and a desire to help educate the next generation of children coming from their same community and deprived conditions.
Second, a recent law requires teachers throughout the State of Amazonas to take continuing education courses at the university level. School teachers in the Amazon typically have only finished a secondary level of education. What's more, their low salaries make it difficult to afford traditional university classes. ADCAM saw a way to offer high quality university level classes at an affordable price, in a setting where teachers could observe a successful model school based on sound educational practices and universal moral principles.
This initiative of ADCAM will help to raise the educational standards and practices throughout the entire Amazon region, will allow its own students access to higher education, and will even assist in the ability of the project to attain self-sufficiency through income received by way of tuition from teachers who study at the college. The Tahirih College of Education was formally approved and licensed on February 15, 2002, and offered its first classes to a student body of 100 students in 2003.
Djalal Ehgrari Polytechnic Institute
Established in 1986, the objective of the Djalal Ehgrari Polytechnic Institute is to offer the rural population, both indigenous and villagers, the opportunity for access to formal education in their own localities. To reach this objective, and with the approval of the Amazon State Council of Education, the Institute adopted a tutorial system of education called SAT for 5th - 8th grades.
Developed by the Foundation for the Application and Teaching of the Sciences (FUNDAEC), this proven system has been widely used in twelve states of Colombia and in other countries of Latin America. Currently, the Institute's SAT program has officially enrolled nine groups from seven rural communities and 27 indigenous students from two tribal areas.
Masrour Institute of Technology
In light of the economic difficulties in the Amazon area of Brazil and the scarcity of jobs and lack of qualified craftsmen, the Association for the Cohesive Development of the Amazon (ADCAM) formed a partnership with the Secretary of Labor (SETRAB) and began to plan and offer short-term professional courses with an eye toward upgrading the skills of workers in the job market or enabling them to start their own small businesses to better sustain their families.
Since 1997, approximately 500 families per year have benefited from these professional courses. Based on the success of this initiative, ADCAM determined to expand these services and through a grant from the Federal Ministry of Education (MEC) of around US$ 1 million to build and equip a vocational school, Masrour Institute of Technology, in 2003.
The goal of this Institute, which was recently inaugurated in October 2005, is to provide quality basic professional technical education for youth and adults in various fields such as business administration, mechanics, refrigeration, carpentry, social and economic development, social work, graphic design, music, environmental studies, and nutrition. When fully operational, the Institute will serve 1,500 students each term.
The Institute will also provide higher educational opportunities for the students of the ADCAM Project, serve the larger community by upgrading workers' skills and encouraging the creation of new businesses, and can also help ADCAM's efforts toward self-sustenance through income derived from tuition and the use of the equipment at the school to develop paid services offered in the community such as graphic design, environmental testing, air conditioner and refrigerator repair, consulting services and so on.
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