Combating school dropout and failure

I am Teodoro Fortes da Graça, dynamic and creative young man, my greatest virtue is to change people's way of thinking in a positive way. I have been a Professor since 2007, a volunteer at the Red Cross, founder of the Young Talent Association and motivator of young people to implement projects.

My work intends to solve school failure and failure in my city, as well as the use of alcohol and other drugs, using art: Music, photography and video production, the project can elevate humanity serving as an example for others companies.

The problem of school dropout is a very serious problem in the African continent and in my city this is not the norm, there are many young people of school age for various reasons are dropping out of school and often consuming alcohol while still of school age.

My project consists of combating school failure and failure through music and audiovisual production in conjunction with the pedagogical directorates of the schools with family support and also providing students at risk with a snack during school attendance, taking into account that a large part of the students experience economic difficulties in order to be able to feed.

My project serves young people of school age and contributes to change the lives of young people since it contributes to continue their studies and they have a healthy and stimulating occupation through music and other art forms, thus increasing the young people's self-esteem. Students have the opportunity to talk about their life, their potential and what they want to achieve. Our organization also organizes shows where these young people have the opportunity to show their talent.

As we know the age of adolescence is a phase of discoveries in which young students at risk in conflicts with their parents end up being vulnerable and thus start experimenting with drugs and alcohol and often end up dropping out of school and many taking school failure. It is in this sense that we intend to raise the understanding of young people through changing attitudes, beliefs and behaviors regarding problems related to the consumption of alcohol and other diseases in order to make healthier decisions.

The Project was created due to the need to support artistic talent in the school where I am a teacher, I found that the school board did not give any importance to students with artistic potential, my school only cares about subjects in subjects such as mathematics and other curricular subjects while the artistic part didn’t matter so I made the decision to create and organize in the first place a group of young people who sang HIP HOP, we started having meetings and I ended up transmitting and debating with these young subjects (drugs, alcohol and other important themes across all youth) to make some musical productions. Over time we formed a musical band that includes young people of both sexes. Over time I had the need to formalize our organization called Young Talent where we work on various social, environmental and entrepreneurship projects.

I am passionate about the projects I develop at Young Talent as it is very rewarding and passionate to see young people getting rid of social scourges (drugs, alcohol consumption) and to develop their talents in music and other ways of art that can be transformed in the future into a form of income or even a profession. The problem is so important since we can lose a generation in the world of drugs, alcohol and, consequently, crime, and this ends up jeopardizing the future of our country. What motivates us to continue the work are the results obtained by seeing young people rid of the world of drugs and alcohol that affects the youth, such as school dropouts. I am a teacher for several of these students, hence the connection with young teenagers and the community, these are situations that we encounter in our daily lives and there is no way we can do nothing.

I am well positioned to deliver the project as being a teacher and being close to the students makes it easy to develop the project. I am open to listening to students and building a strategy based on different art forms to solve the problem. As an experience, I have already developed some projects at the Red Cross and in the youth center of Porto Novo, we have developed an environmental education project financed by the GEF SGP environment fund. Hence we think we have the capacity to solve the problem.

An example of the ability to overcome adversity is the existence of the Young Talent Association, even without resources, out of nowhere we managed to implement some projects related to music and school failure. Even against the direction of the school that did not give importance to artistic ability, we managed to carry out various activities where we organized musical galas that ended up valuing young people.

Young Talent is a great example of leadership skills considering the activities that we have developed, such as the environmental education project in the context of youth and climate change. The implementation of the 2030 agenda through the music being produced by young people: Music related to gender equality, education focused on the need to take care of children, environment and climate change, etc.

O que torna o projeto diferente é a capacidade de comunicação com os jovens em situação risco em consumo de álcool e outras drogas dando possibilidade aos jovens de encontrar outros caminhos. 

we will use art to change the behavior and attitude of young people

Currently 47 people, next year 79 and 5,150 from now.

My goal for the next year and years to come is to continue combating the use of alcohol and other drugs in schools, acting on prevention with a strategy of bringing students closer by introducing various occupations using new technologies, different forms of arts and also dialogue with family members with multidisciplinary monitoring in the early years of young people entering schools, where the issue will be addressed in a dynamic way taking testimonies from people who have been in the world of drugs and alcohol, as well as sportsmen and artists who can serve as idols, thus promoting moments of reflection.

The barriers as always here in our country are related to the lack of financial resources and also physical infrastructures to develop a more complex Project.

We intend to continue looking for financing, to seek partners related to the Project to acquire some material goods and equipment to develop the projects, to seek donations of musical instruments, a recovery and counseling house.

We have no partner.

Looking for different partnerships, at this moment we have developed something because of me being a teacher and being with the students and because of that the project is working, combining music and other easy activities to carry out.

6000 dollars

Seek financing to materialize our activities in a more effective way with the purchase of musical instruments, computers, and other multimedia equipment such as cameras and film, drones and other equipment for the occupation of our young people at risk and even in situation of drug and alcohol consumption living in the world of poverty and school dropout.

My goals are: consumption of alcohol and drugs in schools in my city zero, to lift girls and boys out of poverty with audiovisual training and integration into the labor market as a result of artistic and audiovisual activities.

with any organization available, we have no preferences.