This initiative aims to provide an updated and innovative response to the training and professional qualification activities of Salesian works. For this reason, in order to accompany the editorial work carried out by Edebê Brasil, a Salesian Forum on Apprenticeship was created, with the participation of one representative per Province, and a Working Group was formed, with the participation of managers and educators working on the Apprenticeship Program.
“This project, which is now materialized in paper format and soon in digital format, is a great progress, a great joy, a great thanks to all those who have mobilized over the past two years. By the way, it is a project that had been desired by the social area for many years,” said Executive Director of the Salesian Network Brazil and Administrator of the publishing house Edebê Brasil, Fr. Nivaldo Luiz Pessinatti. “There was already in the past a very interesting experience called ‘Largada para o Futuro’ (Departure for the Future), which also contained these elements that today we are resuming, in a new version, at a new time, with the ‘Mundo Aprendiz’ collection. As Executive Director, I can only thank everyone, rejoice in this event, and truly hope that this is the first of many necessary initiatives to offer our apprentices and our social works subsidies of technical-professional quality, marked by the Salesian charism and presented with this technological flavor that is so important and necessary in the world in which we live.”
“The ‘Apprentice World’ project brings with it innovation and the implementation of a concrete action to help the insertion of boys and girls in the labor market, and to achieve the goals of their Life Projects. With this, it seems to me that we also give a response to the Strategic Planning of the RSB, which has among its objectives the strengthening of the incidence of the Salesian Educational-Pastoral Plan in the life choices of young people,” commented the Executive Director of the Salesian Network of Brazil, Sister Silvia Aparecida da Silva, of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (FMA).
The new collection is organized into three modules, “Integration and the World of Work,” “Digital Inclusion,” and “Human Formation and Citizenship,” all of which are based on the social action and general competency pillars of the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC). All modules will also be available in digital format, with proposed activities based on the use of active methodologies, which enable the effective participation and leadership development of young people in their apprenticeship processes. “The material is 100 percent digital, both for adolescents and assisted youth and for educators. Its entire design was conceived and developed to meet current technological needs. Available on the ‘Edebê Publicações’ platform, the material is easy to navigate and features interactive resources such as games, interactive illustrations and videos,” says Edebê’s editorial coordinator, Giovanna Farago.
“The material was constructed together, taking into account the reality of each Province, therefore, it is a material that bears the face of Salesian work developed throughout the country, and all works were able to contribute to its content. We created a Working Group that sent contributions and, based on these, we refined it until we arrived at a matrix that is what young people need today, according to the norms and the BNCC,” says the Socio-Educational and Pastoral Manager of the Apprenticeship Center “CESAM-DF,” Tatiana Furtado Gomes. “My expectation is that this material can contribute greatly to the formation of our young people at every stage and that it can bring a much higher quality, because sometimes people were looking for many references and it was difficult to find them, while now material is available for everyone that represents our face, with our reference points and with what differentiates us in doing this work with young people. So the expectations are the best and we are very satisfied,” he adds.
The modules in the collection will be independent, and once the material is made available on the Edebê platform, it will not necessarily require purchasing the printed material. The RSB, meanwhile, has sent three printed kits, with the educator’s book and student’s book for each module, to each social work to support the teaching teams and promote specific training moments on the use of the platform and content in February and March.
