Interview with Jeieli Capettini, education manager at Instituto Terra
In 2024, Instituto Terra’s educational programs experienced a year of strong expansion, with concrete results and profound changes in the lives of hundreds of young people and children. At the forefront of this transformation, Jeieli Capettini, the Institute’s education manager, tells how the team redesigned strategies, launched new programs and strengthened the Institute’s presence in the territory. In this interview, she shares her learnings, achievements and visions for the future.
Instituto Terra: How do you see the impact of educational programs in 2024?
Jeieli Capettini:
In 2024, we made great progress in our programs. It was a year of incredible results in education! We had the NERE program with a new class. There were 23 students. These students, from different states, different municipalities, different schools, were able to take part in a technical training and personal development program that transformed not only their lives in their communities, but also our perception of how each person develops and how much these people contribute to their environments.
Instituto Terra: What strategies have helped make this expansion possible?
Jeieli:
All of this was only possible through different strategies that we implemented. So, we expanded our outreach areas, our dissemination strategies, so that more young people could benefit, so that the geographical range and location of these young people could be much more diverse and could bring diversity to this group of young participants, so that the cultural impact and the impact of their experiences could be even greater.
Instituto Terra: And what was the journey like for these young people?
Jeieli:
In 2024, we had 23 young people graduating with quality, fully completing everything that was planned within the technical part. And they didn’t just leave with this technical knowledge. We were also able to expand the program with some benefits that were a game changer. We were able to offer English classes to the young people, because we understand that this professional profile is increasingly in dialogue with the world, with different practices and technologies.
Jeieli (continued):
We also managed to offer category B driver’s licenses to these young people, because we understand that they need to enter the job market as soon as possible. And this was a bottleneck that we needed to close in order to better prepare them. Young people in the technical area work a lot on their own, with their own vehicle, visiting properties, visiting environmental areas. And that was one of the bottlenecks we couldn’t address. But as of 2024, the program will have this great benefit – a benefit of not only professional but also personal autonomy for young people. It’s a major milestone in the life of the young person: turning 18 and being able to get a driver’s license, being able to get a job more easily and embrace these opportunities in the job market.
Instituto Terra: Have the results reflected this effort?
Jeieli:
We were very happy with the results of this group. We were also very happy with the interest of these young professionals. Even before the year ended, before the school year ended, half the class was already interviewing for jobs, applying, being sought after by the market, because of all these improvements, all the benefits that the course already offers and that are already recognized by our partners.
Instituto Terra: It was a special year for the Terrinhas too, right?
Jeieli:
It was also a very special year for the Terrinhas program. In 2024, we reintegrated Terrinhas into Instituto Terra. We restructured the entire program, completely updating the teaching materials, bringing up-to-date concepts from the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs, so that they would be more present in school agendas, where our audience is, where our priority audience is – children and adolescents who come here to take part in this learning journey with us.
Jeieli (continuation):
So 2024 was a milestone for us in resuming the program and it was a very intense resumption, because we received more than 500 children and managed to carry out the entire training and education process throughout the year, bringing this to the community that was with us, from various municipalities, from various schools, in a very rich experience within the forest restoration areas, within Instituto Terra’s visitation areas, going through the entire chain necessary to implement this forest that exists today and which can be replicated in many other places, not only with reforestation, but with other innovative solutions for the Terrinhas, for their community, for their family, in order to impact generations and reach a much larger audience with the knowledge that is shared here.
Instituto Terra: What about the Terra Joven program?
Jeieli:
And for the Terra Joven program, this was the pilot year, the launch year. We were delighted with the results and very happy with the impact it had on young people’s lives. The young people who immediately recognized themselves in the program, engaged with it, and saw it as a response to a real demand that existed among them – a demand for connection, a demand for engagement, for involving these young people with causes, with communities, with this power of transformation that they can have, and with this empowerment that they need to act now, in their society, in the communities of which they are a part.
Jeieli (continued):
So the start of Terra Jovem was a big milestone for us. There were 30 young participants from our region, from around Instituto Terra, who were able to learn about practices, get closer to the Institute, get closer to each other, connect as people, as individuals, as beings with specific agendas, with specific needs, and share their worldviews, grow as individuals, as people, and as the professionals they want to be. So Terra Joven was this great, great connection, this great experience.
Instituto Terra: How do you sum up this year?
Jeieli:
All these programs have been implemented thanks to partners, sponsors who believe, as we do, in the power of education and action for transformation. And this transformation needs to happen today. It is through these partners, these sponsors, that we have been able to accomplish all of this together and achieve such incredible results. So thank you very much to all of you who believe in this cause and walk alongside us in search of this change, this evolution.