Andréia Martins de Oliveira Santo, Education Champion

Campaigning to increase enrolment and retention and helping girls impacted by gang violence continue learning

The Issue

The issue

In Maré — the largest community of favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — schools often close due to gang violence and students don’t have the opportunity to catch up on missed lessons. Less than half of the girls in Maré make it to high school because of teen pregnancy, child labour, limited numbers of secondary schools and long, dangerous journeys to school.

Andréia Martins’ approach

Policy Reform

Although resources were tight for Andréia’s family, her mom made it a priority to make sure all five of her children finished high school. This instilled in Andréia a passion for education and she has dedicated her career to helping girls in Maré go to school. For the last 20 years, she has worked as an educator, researcher and project coordinator at Redes da Maré, an organisation that improves the lives of Maré’s residents through education, art, public safety and social justice programmes.

With her Malala Fund grant, Andréia will create an advocacy plan to encourage the Maré Municipal Education Department to implement a policy that ensures schools make up for the days lost due to gang violence. To help more girls continue to high school, she will work with local government departments to identify the reasons girls drop out early. Andréia will then use this research to present a proposal to the municipal government to create a local education office in Maré focused on increasing enrolment and retention rates and developing gender-responsive curriculums. Andréia and Redes da Maré will also conduct community-level girls’ education awareness campaigns, encouraging families to send girls to school.