Instituto Revoar

Our Mission

Revoar was born in 2017 from a dream of working with the power of socially vulnerable youth, starting from the perception that youth is an important phase of a human being's life, during which young people are in full development and in a moment of great doubts, pressures and conflicts. However, they have few opportunities, people and places that are safe and adequate for them to develop fully and reflect on and share anxieties and concerns about their decisions about the future.

This absence of specific conditions and support to look at oneself and develop in an integral way, whether in the current school system, in families or in places and groups frequented by youth, leads today to a frequent number of young people with depression, with fear and few prospects for the future, and suffering from anxiety and psychosomatic illnesses.

The power and vitality of youth, as well as their potential for mobilizing change, both in relation to their role in the economically active population of the coming decades, and for their strong presence and transformative power, have been underdeveloped and got little attention, due to the way in which the education system is considered in the country.

Education today remains focused on the enhancement of cognitive skills, with a focus on the obligation to teach content and a more technical vision of education, which is geared towards preparing people for the professional market. Traditional education still uses models designed to answer old demands, without being able to clearly meet the demands of the new century and reflect new discoveries about human complexity.

This policy option for education excludes from the process of development of human beings, which are complex and multidimensional beings, the learning of social and emotional skills. Young people, the adults of tomorrow, end up going through school and the youth phase without having the opportunity to know and improve a human dimension relevant to their integral development, which in turn generates human beings with limited, and little explored potential.

Today, schools are unable to fulfill the mission of developing all the skills that human beings need to face the challenges of the 21st century. And that does not mean that cognitive skills (interpreting, reflecting, thinking abstractly, generalizing learning, etc.) should be left aside, but rather calls for the integration of the development of socio-emotional skills into the teaching/learning process, since the two are related and complement each other, and together they allow for the integral development of human beings. Therefore, the development of a full education, which considers the human being in its entirety and fullness, is, in general, not being achieved.

Currently, there are many terms that refer to socio-emotional skills, such as education for life, 21st century skills, soft skills, emotional and social intelligence, among others. Regardless of the term used, studies have demonstrated the importance and benefits - individual and social - of developing such skills, such as increased creativity, overcoming losses and difficulties, improving teamwork, reducing bullying, decreasing anxiety and depression and better awareness of talents and strengths.

With the lack of an integral education that is concerned with the development of these skills, young people miss the opportunity to improve the way they relate to themselves and to others, they do not know how to deal with their feelings and emotions, they do not learn to make decisions in a responsible manner, they don't learn to deal with problems and difficulties, they don't develop empathy, self-confidence and they don't learn to be collaborative people.

In view of all these situations and realities, Revoar was created with the proposal to design and implement educational processes for young people in situations of social vulnerability, in public and private schools in Rio de Janeiro, working to contribute to the socio-emotional development of these young people.

The organization's mission is to promote a new education, which values a more humane and integral education, in order to enable better personal and socio-emotional development, through a focus on four pillars: self-knowledge, collaboration, empathy and autonomy. To fulfill these objectives, a novel educational path was created, based on practical and dynamic experiences, combined with deep and provocative reflections and meditations, based on several collaborative and innovative methodologies, which was named Pedagogy of Reconnection.

The entire methodological process proposed is participatory, respecting listening and dialogue between participants. Knowledge is sought through pleasure and the desire to be in Revoar. And, for this, the methodology is based on participative, cooperative and playful actions that recognize the individuality of each one and, at the same time, the strength and importance of the collective. Revoar's methodology is inspired by innovative and collaborative methodologies such as: Pedagogy of Cooperation, Cooperative Games, Dragon Dreaming, mindfulness, Art education, among others, for the development of socio-emotional skills.

Instituto Revoar, in its four years of activity, has held courses with middle and high school students from public schools in Rio de Janeiro, as well as with young people under age who have committed crimes and serve socio-educational measures at the Novo Degase institution. Based on the monitoring and evaluation of its actions, Revoar verified positive and important results, such as, for example: greater ability among participants to identify their own feelings and emotions and greater confidence in expressing them; greater capacity for listening and empathy, and improvement in sociality and working in groups; increased self-esteem through the identification of skills and strengths; improvement in life prospects with the awakening of dreams and greater capacity for choice and decision making with the elaboration of life projects.

After two years of working with young people, in 2019, Instituto Revoar began to share its experience and knowledge with educators from the municipal education network in the city of Rio de Janeiro through the "Connected Educators" project. Connected Educators is a process of experiential training, from the perspective of integral education, which aims to deepen the knowledge of educators about socio-emotional skills, so that they can more intentionally develop them in the classroom.

The Connected Educators course focuses on connecting educators with themselves, with their "I-educator", with their studies and with the school and, from there, developing a more direct and deeper knowledge about socio-emotional skills, and about ways to develop them intentionally in the classroom. The feedback from the participating educators was very positive, having seen results in the educators' self-esteem and motivation, as well as their practical experience of socio-emotional education in the classroom.

Instituto Revoar, therefore, currently creates learning experiences to strengthen and connect educators and students, with a focus on the development of socio-emotional skills and the promotion of integral education.