Current Status  -  January 2001 

The Brahma Kumaris in Brasil have been involved in training educators throughout the country to implement Living Values Education. With excellent relationships with different states' Departments of Education, LVE is currently being used at 952 sites in several states. The sites include schools, orphanages and day care centres; special activities are also being carried out with street children. 

During the months of March, April, May and June 2000, the Brasilian LVE Team introduced the Programme or conducted Teachers' Trainings in 121 schools, covering 3,927 teachers and principals. 

In response to increasing requests, a national Living Values team was created to increase the number of teachers able to conduct LVE. 

A partnership is being entered into with the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (one of the 52 Federal Universities in the country), so that LVE may be acknowledged as a University Extension Course. For this to become reality, the LVE Teachers' Training Course in Brasil will need to have a duration of at least 20 hours of class-time. All the LVE Teacher Training Certificates will be signed by the coordinator of the National LVE Committee and a representative of the Rural University. 

These are details of some of the programmes that took place: 

• LVE was introduced to 300 educators (principals, coordinators and teachers) in S? Jos?dos Campos, S? Paulo State; 

• Introduction of LVE to 300 teachers of several schools during the III Educationists' Meet of the Anhanguera Park Public School, S? Paulo City; 

• Lecture on Self-Esteem at the third Regional Commissionership of Education for Central West Region, for 130 educationists, S? Paulo City; 

• Lecture to parents and university students of pedagogy who work with mentally disabled teenagers, at UNICSUL (Southern Cross University) for 90 participants, S? Paulo City; 

• Introduction of LVE to 50 teachers of Military Police School in Belo Horizonte and also for 100 teachers and parents in the Municipality of Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais State; 

• LVE Teachers' Training for 117 teachers of 33 schools of S? Domingos City and Introduction of LVE to 130 principals of DIREC 1 A School of Salvador, Bahia State; and 

• Teachers' Training for 80 teachers of Grande Oriente State School, in Porto Alegre and introduction of LVE to 103 teachers of the State School of Novo Hamburgo, Rio Grande do Sul State. 

Number of Sites Using Living Values Education 

Total number of sites  952 


Impact 

It is wonderful to see the results of LVE with children, students and teachers. The LVE Video recently made by Wanda Canto shows the results of running Living Values Activities in two pre-schools, one in a poor area and another in a middle class area. The children enjoy the values activities and the teachers note more cooperation, respect, and love in the classroom. 

Professor Canto wrote:
A day care centre should provide a learning environment for the children. The children should find a place where they can both play games and learn by living values and exchanging experiences, thereby creating their own culture. This should include a lot of love and interaction with the educators. Allowing, for example, a three-year-old child to help with the dishes in the kitchen, or to count the forks and knives, while also talking about colours, textures, weights, etc. creates a notion of discipline and responsibility and facilitates practical learning.

The educator, knowing that each child is unique in his or her perception of the world and of himself, should also identify in each child his own way of learning, of interacting with others and of participating in group and social activities. It is also important that the educator registers the main events and lessons of each day, be they positive or negative. These registers should be shared with the other educators and with the coordinators, in order to take the necessary steps to remedy negative issues or reinforce positive behaviour. After all, the experience of one should be shared with others.

Some of the dynamic exercises done by educators, which have met with very positive reactions from the children, are: 

1. Paper mosaic - from 2 ? years of age 

   • The educator initiates a dialogue with the children, proposing that they hug and kiss one another while thinking about colours and love. She talks about love and shows the children a yellow sheet of paper. 

   • She asks them to look at the yellow paper and close their eyes and think about that colour. 

   • Then she asks them to hug a friend thinking of that yellow colour. 

   • Then the procedure is repeated with the other colours. 

   • On the following day, the educator revisits the exercise with colours. 

   • She distributes a large A2 Bristol board sheet for each 3-4 children, several sheets of colourful magazines and glue. Each group should focus on one colour and search for that colour in the pages of the magazine. On finding the colour, they tear out the picture in the magazine that has that colour into pieces of paper approximately 3cm x 3cm and glue them to the Bristol board. The whole surface of the A2 sheet should be covered. 

   • Objective: teach about colours. Value: LOVE

2. Leaves mosaic - any age group

   • During a nice walk or a picnic with the children, collect leaves and small branches. 

   • Back in the classroom, the material collected can be glued (by the group) over a large Bristol board. The collage can be completed with drawings by the children. 

   • Another idea is to make a collage of leaves, putting on each leaf individually, on a cardboard box. 

   • Then the educator can finish it with varnish. 

3. Other mosaics 

   • Any material can be used to build a mosaic: gravel, cloth, plastic, wires in general, cans, etc. 

4. Puppets - from 2 years of age 

   • Material required: sticks with two pieces of cardboard, wool, glue, coloured pens and pencils. 

   • Once they are made, the stick puppets are used to stimulate conversations about values in an improvised drama. 

5. Pintura em Tecido (Cloth Painting Method) - for children of all age groups. 

   • First, make colourful drawings, using wax crayons on thin sandpaper and filling all the space available. 

   • Cover an ironing table with kraft paper, place the painted sandpaper over the paper (the drawings should be facing upwards) cover with a white cloth and iron with a very hot iron until the picture is transferred to the cloth. 

   • This can be used to paint T-shirts, etc. or even make little squares that can be put together to form a nice duvet cover.