A partnership between the ENGIE Foundation, ENGIE Brasil and the GOL DE LETRA foundation, the Jogo Aberto (Open Game) Project aims to enable exercising rights pursuant to the Statute of Children and Teenagers, such as education, culture, sports and leisure for children and youths of the Caju community, an area in the port zone of Rio de Janeiro with high levels of social and economic vulnerability. The Gol de Letra Foundation’s educational proposal seeks to adapt rules, acting frameworks, spaces and materials according to participants’ social and personal circumstances.

Each year, social and sports activities in the Caju Communities directly benefit the lives of over 2,000 people between 3 and 18 years of age. Through non-selective daily sports practice, reading and writing, computer training and literacy support, the project finds in cooperation as the best means to experience sports for personal and social development, as well for individual citizenship exercise.

The Jogo Aberto Project conducts socio-educational activities such as indoors soccer, gymnastics, judo and table tennis, in addition to providing pedagogical and educational support. Sports allow reinforcing children’s and youths’ relational skills, creative thinking, discipline, the pleasure in sharing and celebrating, among other values that form strong, integrated human beings capable of coexisting with the differences and potentialities found in social life, thereby helping improve their living standards.

Objectives

• To develop social skills included as content and strategy by means of activities such as conversation circles, recreational-cooperative games, city walks, and the exploration of cultural and sports spaces, including a sports festival and social service;
• CoTo contribute to the construction of social protection contexts by means of active welcoming and educational actions to foster the social, sports, cultural and political development of beneficiaries and their families;
• To train young leaders between 15 and 18 years of age to work in their communities as multipliers for sports, social and leisure activities;
• To promote citizenship, sports and leisure activities in the community, including 300 students of the Caju district’s public schools.

Results

• The project currently serves 280 children and youths between 8 and 18 years of age in the Caju Complex, and indirectly reaches 840 household members through social service actions;
• 70% of participants embraced socially cooperative and pro-peace attitudes;
• 70% of participants showed improved involvement with sports, culture, and the appreciation of citizenship;
• Strengthened family and community ties through play and sports.