It was the second one that opened in the Prelature of Labrea, after the success of the one in Labrea and its need to be confirmed in the other municipalities of the Mission. It began by sharing the parish facilities of the Catechesis but today it has its own headquarters.
The Hope Center of Tapaua (Amazonas, Brazil) is celebrating: it turns 25 years old. It’s about a socio-educational project that provides its beneficiaries, children and adolescents from sexes, a space for learning, leisure and nutritional reinforcement in safe conditions.
In the Prelature of Labrea (Amazonas, Brazil), located in the middle of the Amazon jungle, starting in the 90s of the last century, the Augustinian Recollects saw a reality that worried and moved in a special way.
These small municipalities in the Brazilian Amazon had a common situation among young people and adolescents full of challenges: dropping out of school and absolute disinterest in studies, child labor, early access to an active sexual life, unwanted pregnancies and almost normalized abuse of adolescents, recurrent alcoholism in families, family breakdown, homes without spaces for privacy or spaces that facilitate study…
Added to this cocktail were new realities that began to arrive at the end of the 20th century, despite the distances and communication difficulties; and the problems of the large cities were beginning to be present in these rural Amazonian societies, mainly those related to drug trafficking and consumption and everything that they entail organized crime and violence.
Those at least peaceful small towns in the Amazon were beginning to see robberies with violence, murders, attacks between gangs and exploitation of minors of non-punishable age forcibly introduced into the traffic operational scheme.
The Hope Center wanted to fill an important gap: outside the five hours daily at school (which they attend in the morning, afternoon or evening), children and adolescents only had the street as a living space, without positive references.
The Center offers children and adolescents of both sexes a safe space in which they mixed learning, healthy leisure, fun, nutritional reinforcement, sport and being able to be with others friends doing what is typical of that age: playing, growing, learning.
In its first year, the Tapaua Hope Center had 20 students and a single workshop occupational. The means were few, but the group of religious Recollects and several enthusiasts collaborators managed to launch it in the catechesis rooms attached to the temple main parish.
Over time, these rooms were doubled creating a second floor and, when it was possible, years later, the Hope Center moved to its own, unique, specific space, with everything necessary for its operation: classrooms and workshops, sports center, kitchen, multipurpose space which serves as a dining room and auditorium…
During these 25 years, the number and subject of learning has varied significantly offered. However, professional and cultural workshops are only part of a comprehensive training framework that includes values and attitudes.
At the Hope Center you learn, above all, teamwork, solidarity, conscious citizenship, the promotion of dialogue to resolve conflicts, personal responsibility, healthy leisure and fun, taking care of physical and mental health, taking care of the environment, healthy and respectful human relationships, never abusive…
Attention to beneficiaries and growth have also been significantly professionalized of infrastructure allows it to easily serve just over a hundred students between 12 and 17 years old in two shifts that are simultaneous with school.
Thus, those who go to regular school in the morning spend the afternoon at the Hope Center; and vice versa. Because attending school is one of the requirements to be able to be a beneficiary of the Hope Center, in a continued fight against absenteeism and school failure.
The Tapaua Hope Center has been working for 25 years, 25 generations of students who have received the clear and loud message that good people, who fight for a more fair, supportive and egalitarian, they build happy lives and more peaceful and progressive societies.
Among other actions to celebrate this anniversary, the Hope Center has created a profile of Instagram and has also promoted the publication of photographs of his early days, digitized, on Facebook. A way to remember all those who passed through their classrooms and today they are conscious citizens and promoters of social values in Tapaua..