The research report summarizes four years of work on improving the educational context for children in low-income urban neighborhoods. The study, Safe, Inclusive Participative Pedagogy: Improving Early Childhood Education in Fragile Contexts, was part of a four-country effort, coordinated by the University of Edinburgh, to explore the realities of young children in communities affected by violence and identify the priorities of parents, children, teachers, and community leaders. In Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, CIESPI interviewed 60 parents, teachers, and leaders, and engaged 30 children through creative participatory methods to examine inclusion, participation, and safety in early childhood education. The study highlighted concerns about the public sector’s failure to provide safety and basic services, as well as a lack of safe spaces for children. A total of 300 residents contributed to a Charter for Early Childhood, which emphasized mental health and anti-discrimination.

This new report describes what parents think about inclusion, participation and safety in the education of their young children.  As part of a concluding four-year study on improving the learning context for young children in a low-income community in Rio de Janeiro, staff interviewed, among others, the parents and adult care-givers of children aged 0 to 5 who live in the community of Rocinha. The interviews were focused on the particular issues of inclusion, participation and safety of the children in the community and in their early education centers. 

The final Bulletin (Nº 10) was written in co-authorship by Carolina Terra, Irene Rizzini, Leandro Castro and Renata Mena Brasil do Couto and concludes the series of reports of the project Safe, Inclusive and Participative Pedagogy. 

This bulletin is the last in the series on the Project that focuses on the interviews carried out in Rocinha. It examines the struggles and opportunities for improving the educational and development conditions for young children growing up in contexts of violence and poverty. The bulletin, written by CIESPI staff members Leandro Castro, Renata Brasil and Eliane Gomes, is based on interviews with sixteen key actors from public, non-profit and private organizations that operate in the community.

CIESPI/PUC-Rio has just issued its 8^th bulletin in the SIPP Project series Participative and Inclusive Early Childhood Education under the title What early childhood teachers think about the opportunities and challenges of early education in their community of Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro. The bulletin is based on interviews with 20 early education teachers and directors in the community, and follows the project’s interest in reflecting on how to improve safety, inclusion and participation in the education centers, in the children’s homes and in the community.

Childhood is the point of departure for all the works of the poet Manoel de Barros. His words connect the adult with the child that used to exist and with all those around him. His poetry is inspired by a curiosity of someone who sees the world for the first time like children do. This is also the task of researchers at CIESPI/PUC-Rio in a new stage of the project Participatory and Inclusive early childhood.In this stage, questions about inclusion, participation and safety were the agenda for creating strategic methods for talking with thirty children between the ages of three and seven who are residents of Rocinha.

With the aim of enlarging the debates arising from the international project Participatory and Inclusive Early Childhood Education, CIESPI/PUC-Rio has just launched its first Policy Brief in the project. In this first bulletin, the authors address the urgent need for more spaces in early childhood education for children 0-3 in Brazil. Malcolm Bush and Renata Brasil summarize data from national and international studies that show the critical importance of investing in the expansion and improvement in quality of early education especially for children who live in contexts of vulnerability.  They also show the large gap between the demand and supply of early education places. 

As part of the Project, CIESPI staff interviewed twenty parents or adults living in the low-income Rio community of Rocinha who were responsible for children aged 0 to 5. The interviews covered a variety of themes relating to the education of the young children in their care. The following account summarizes the adults’ views on the three major topics of the research project. Depending on the circumstances, the adults were either interviewed in person or online using phone or Whatsapp. We note that inclusion and participation are overlapping terms and that the parents’ responses reflect that fact.

CIESPI always tries to contribute something to the communities it engages in research with and this bulletin tracks two such actions in Rocinha. The first action was a collaboration with community and health organizations in the community to promote the vaccination against COVID-19 of younger children. The second was a project to train six young people in the community to listen to and work and play with young children both on-line and in local early childhood education centers.

In bulletin 4 we examine the views of early childhood staff in public, private and blended creches (‘conveniadas’) about their work, COVID, and their relations with the city of Rio.