Posted by Jack Hanlon, CBO & Evangelist
Check out this month's edition of our recurring feature,
Worldfund's Student of the Month.
Worldfund is our Latin American non-profit literacy partner and we look to support them in any way we can as they support youths such as:
Bruno!
Seventeen-year-old Bruno was born and raised in
Salvador, Bahia, where he lives with his mother, a domestic worker, and
his two younger sisters.
Bruno has always liked electronics and is working towards becoming
an engineer. When he was 14, he was accepted into the Steve Biko
Institute’s three-year, intensive after-school Oguntec Program, which
prepares disadvantaged Afro-Brazilian students for the vestibular
(university entrance exam). Last year, at age 16, Bruno took his first
exam for admission to the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) and passed
the first phase for Electrical Engineering. Bruno graduated from high
school in December 2007 and hopes to begin his university studies in
2008.
Bruno believes that his participation in the Oguntec Program was the
best thing that ever happened to him. It was as a student in this
program that he learned that the word “quit” is not part of his
vocabulary. He also learned that for a young man from a poor
neighborhood, completing high school is not enough. He needs to dream
of attending university. Bruno’s goals include attending university,
establishing a career, and changing the economic situation of his
family.
As Bruno states, “Attending university will make me the first, the
first child, the first grandson, the first nephew in one generation to
believe in the DREAM. Afterwards, I would like to return the Steve Biko
Institute and become a professor in the Oguntec Program which I believe
should always continue. It was at the Institute that I learned to have
a social commitment.”
