Following its donation to the Pro-Saber SP Institute in the first year of the pandemic, the ABCD Charitable Trust renewed its support in 2021. This time, Pró-Saber SP used the amount to maintain the organization’s routine upkeep in the community of Paraisópolis, including the work of the Pró Ler & Brincar Program and the Pró-Saber SP Library.
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Working since 2003 in the community of Paraisópolis, in São Paulo, the Instituto Pró-Saber SP aims to strengthen the full education of Brazilian children and young people through literacy and play. In 2020, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the related shut-down of the organization’s physical location, the playful and pedagogical activities offered in the shift by the Pró Ler & Brincar program began to be carried out in virtual mode. However, the families felt the socio-emotional and financial impacts of the health crisis and isolation measures, which led Pró-Saber SP to channel part of its efforts into material support to them. The money given by the ABCD Charitable Trust was used for the monthly delivery of reading and play kits (with books, activities, drawing material, modeling mass, educational toys, etc.) and financial assistance to families.
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Todos Aprendem was the focus of the second phase of the ABCD Institute, centered on continued training of Brazilian teachers. The project was the fruit of a partnership among specialists and researchers from the main learning centers. At this point, the training course was in-person, conducted through partnerships with other organizations in the educational area, with 41 municipal departments of education and with the state governments of São Paulo and Pará (with a student population of 240,000). In 2015, in partnership with the State Department of Education of São Paulo, the course migrated to an online format. This resulted in an expanded scope and a reduced cost of the project. With the Covid-19 pandemic and the challenges imposed on teachers by remote education, 6,379 teachers took the training, the highest number since the project began. In all, Todos Aprendem impacted more than 8,000 teachers.
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As the first concrete action by the ABCD Institute, the Reference Centers Project aimed to produce, disseminate, and exchange knowledge about dyslexia in Brazil. To this end, it selected five centers (four linked to public universities) that offered diagnosis and care for persons with learning disabilities. In addition to developing a common multidisciplinary evaluation protocol and building bridges among these centers, the project provided financial incentive for the structuring of the services offered by the reference centers and for the development of research. Currently, iABCD includes on list the public a total of 12 centers (now called Centers of Excellence), located in the Southeast, Northeast and South of Brazil.
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Founded in 2009, iABCD is a Brazilian non-profit institution dedicated to the cause of dyslexia. It works in three main areas: advocacy; specialized diagnosis and follow-up; and education.
Advocacy – working for better support from society and public policies. This led to the creation of a guidebook for parents with children with dyslexia, to help them in starting associations and support groups, as well as approval of Law No. 14,254/2021.
Diagnosis and care – through a call for proposals, ABCD selected five projects (four of them linked to public universities) to build into leading centers on specific learning disorders. This allowed already existing projects to undergo a process of professionalization and promotion.
Education (teachers): the Todos Aprendem project, executed in partnership with educational organizations and municipal and state departments of education, promoted continued training to public school teachers in 2014. The following year, the course moved into an online format, expanding its reach. In addition, iABCD created the online course “Understanding Dyslexia”, aimed at persons with dyslexia, family members, and those interested in the topic.
Education (students): given the high rate of functional illiteracy in the country, estimated at 30%, the iABCD expanded the idea of directly supporting the literacy of children with learning disabilities. In 2019, it launched EduEdu, a free app with personalized activities on phonological awareness, alphabetic writing and reading system.
Pandemic: During the Covid-19 pandemic, EduEdu became an important tool during remote teaching. In addition to activities for printing, iABCD invested in digital activities and in the Socioemotional Space (in partnership with the Ame Sua Mente Institute), also in 2020. The following year, EduEdu continued to expand digital activities and created, with funding from Cisco, the Dyslexia Space, which provides a test for signs of dyslexia developed in partnership with the Federal University of Rio Grande Norte (UFRN). Also during the first two years of the pandemic, iABCD launched two books on specific learning disorders aimed at education professionals, held a cycle of online lectures during Dyslexia Week and conducted the study “Profile of Specific Learning Disorder in Brazil: Costs for families and Impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic” with Cisco’s support. Already reaping results of its actions, iABCD now broadens its vision of helping ALL children with literacy difficulties, in the search to reduce the social, economic, and health barriers imposed on learning in Brazil
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