Alicerce Educação was created to better prepare students and allow them to fulfill whichever dreams they have. Our mission is to transform the lives of more than 40 million public school students in Brazil, from low-income families, thus we are heavily focused on quality and scalability. In order to change Brazil’s outlook, we must grow and reach all students and we must really change their lives.
We are an innovative afterschool program, combining cognitive neuroscience and agile methodology to ensure learning. With personalized classes considering students’ challenges, we improve reading, writing, and math competencies, develop social-emotional skills and expand cultural repertoire. Focused on human development, we also help to build and advance their life projects. Besides decreasing their academic knowledge gap, by promoting project-based learning, we connect them to current and relevant social issues. We want to develop resilient and strong-minded youth with critical thinking, self confidence and emotional maturity. With a data-based approach, given our bimonthly test, classes are planned daily and focus on students' learning gaps. Inspired by Teach For America, we recruit and train undergraduate students to help K-12 students learn. From similar socioeconomic background, they are role models, and receive financial support and training to boost their professional careers.
We work with two organizations, a for-profit social impact business, Alicerce Educação, and a non-profit organization, Instituto Alicerce. Students from families with some disposable income are offered a low-cost afterschool program and students from the most vulnerable families are offered scholarships for the same program. We grow the business by digital marketing, word-of-mouth advertising, and having centers located in low-income neighbourhoods, close to our target public; and we grow our scholarship base by fundraising within the philanthropic sector. We have 87 centers in 6 states, which were closed due to the COVID pandemic, but reopening in Dec/2020. We have also launched the online classes, which helped to spread awareness to the entire country, with students from all 27 states.
We personalize education through a whole-person method for low-income students. Our afterschool program integrates content-knowledge enhancement in reading and math, life skills development and cultural repertoire expansion. We plan interventions based on bimonthly individual adaptive digital assessments. Students work in learning stations according to their specific needs and development level.
