Santos - Brazil
Volpi Urbane set up an educational programme in collaboration with the Dutch creative agency NorthernLight and the Municipality of Santos. The activities focused in raising children’s awareness of sustainable cities by an interactive programme to achieve the ideal sustainable city.
Together we conducted school workshops in a weeklong. About 200 students aged between 11 and 14 developed an ideal city; taking people, profit and the planet key factors to consider.
Design your dream city
NorthernLight
Objectives
The workshop invites to think about different perspectives in the design and the planning of a city. It is a role-play based on the exchange of point of views for a sustainable city development, where People, Planet and Profit discuss about and combine their proposals. The activity attempts to get the children together with diverse roles such as Architects, Biologists, Civil Engineers and Businessmen, to start the debates about the city planning. The participants will try to defend their interests and eventually to reach a balance in the city design, and ultimately to collectively achieve the most suitable urban planning for all the city inhabitants.
Schools Participants
The schools have been chosen by the programme PIBID (Programa Institucional de Bolsa de Iniciação à Docência), a collaborative educational programme between the University Unisantos and the Municipality of Santos (Secretaria de educação). These are public schools for children of low-income families. The names of the 5 schools are:
A- UME 28 de fevereiro
Location: Rua Flamínio Levy, 1051 - Saboó
B- UME Ayrton Senna da Silva
Location: Av. Sen. Pinheiro Machado, 617 - Campo Grande
C- UME Martin Fontes
Location: Estrada João Batista, s/n – Morro da Penha
D- UME Prof. Florestan Fernandes
Location: Oswaldo Cochrane, 91 - Embaré
E- UME Cidade do Santos
Location: Av. Senador Dantas, 410 – Embaré
Workshop
At the beginning, the school children are divided in four groups of professionals: the architects, the biologists, the civil engineers and the businessmen. Every participant receives a handbook with a mission and activities according to their profession. For instance, a Civil Engineer finds information about how to be an Engineer, what the respective mission is, what the characteristics of the job are and the elements and attitude needed for work. Besides, every handbook proposes activities to observe, describe, draw, strategically think and imagine possibilities of change.
Children's awareness of sustainable cities
Funding by:
Creative Industries Fund NL
Ministry of Education & Culture - Brazil