THE COMMUNITY, THE LOCAL INSTITUTIONS INVOLVED, THE CONTEST AND OUR ACTIONS
The PRAPETEC group invited two institutions to implement a contest supported by CONNECT project, namely the Centro Vicentino de Educação Infantil Santa Luiza, located in Curitiba – PR, and the SCHOOL PROFESSORA ADELINA REGIS located in Videira – SC.
The partnership between PUCPR and SCHOOL PROFESSORA ADELINA REGIS was established to collaborate in the Contest named: PERSONA “Hands-on Action”, which aimed to encourage and disseminate creativity and power of expression of students at the Escola de Belas Artes. The competition, which is held annually and existed for over a decade, aims to encourage artistic production, contributing to the critical and creative development of the participants. This special edition of 2021, presented a guiding theme, which aimed to share the experiences of the University and school community during the COVID-19 pandemic, promoting reflection on the approximation of the University to society in this context.
In this edition, the competition was divided into two categories: one for students of the design course at PUCPR and another for high school students at SCHOOL PROFESSORA ADELINA REGIS. Different profiles of individuals and their diversity participated, from creation, dissemination, judgment to the formulation and submission of ideas and proposals. In this list, the following groups were involved: high school students, undergraduate students, master’s, doctoral and post-doctoral students from the graduate program in Education at PUCPR (PPGE), professors from the Education and Design courses, experienced researchers, and young research students, as well as professional designer from the company LOBA – Portugal in order to promote exchange.
The contest awarded the best work for each category defined for this edition, respectively, seeking to reflect on this important challenge we are living in nowadays and its expression on the specific support of the protective mask.
During the PERSONA Contest, students were invited to illustrate masks considering the theme “Together against COVID-19 with CONNECT”.
In the Design Course at PUCPR, which takes 4 years and has 600 students regularly enrolled, more than 50 works entered the competition, involving students from all periods of the Design course.
In the state school of basic education Professora Adelina Regis, which serves students from the New High School, participated in the PERSONA contest, involving two teachers and twelve groups of students, resulting in 200 students with submitted works.
The works submitted for each category – high school and higher education – were submitted for analysis by a jury of professionals. The winning masks will be produced and distributed to students from the state school of basic education Professor Adelina Regis and to the Centro Vicentino de Educação Infantil Santa Luiza.
The pandemic period forced the children in the community to remain at home, not having access to study places and interactions with other spaces where study activities were previously carried out. This distance made all the children carry out their studies and activities at home, with the support of local educators and the community itself.
As a way to contribute to this need, during the Contest, school materials were collected and distributed to partner entities and children served.
We highlight the relevance of the integration between school and community based on solidary actions aimed at the quality of life and well-being of all human beings through art. This context and its visuality enabled new reflections on “taking care of the other as yourself”, empathy, gratitude and awareness of becoming protagonists in favor of human life.
The Centro Vicentino de Educação Infantil Santa Luiza receives 127 children from 4 months up to 5 years old and is geographically located in Vila Torres in the city of Curitiba. Founded in 1970, formed by small invasions of families from the interior of Curitiba and other cities, formerly known as Vila Pinto, now renamed Vila Torres, it houses 10,500 inhabitants in its 199 thousand m2. It has as neighbors: PUCPR, Colégio Medianeira, Teatro Paiol, Colégio Esperança and the Federation of Industries of Paraná (Fiep).
The region intersects three middle-class neighborhoods (Jardim Botânico, Rebouças and Prado Velho), Vila Torres suffers from a chronic problem, which arises from a historical cultural and assistance backwardness.
The region has grown a lot and residents have always sought improvements for the community. Due to its accelerated growth and the lack of effective public policies, the place suffers from marked social problems that are harmful to the health of the population, being in a situation of social vulnerability, suffering consequences of violence and prejudice, originated from the narcotics trade.
The local economy is very active, with several projects that help in the development of the community, but still what stands out, due to the large number of workers, is recycling. Vila Torres has several sheds that carry out recycling and shelter families that do not have the physical, emotional, social structure to carry out another activity, if not recycling. Thus, these families need help and guidance to have their rights guaranteed and achieve a better quality of life.
The School Professora Adelina Regis receives 700 high school students and is located in the center of the city of Videira, on Rua XV de Novembro, in the middle west of the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. Videira is a region colonized by Italians and Germans who, at the end of the last century, immigrated from Rio Grande do Sul. These families came in search of better living conditions, also attracted by the colonizing “Southern Brazil Lumber and Colonization”, which would offer cheap land on the banks of the railroad São Paulo and the Rio Grande do Sul. Located in the Vale do Rio do Peixe, the municipality has an area of 378.4 km². The current population is approximately 53 thousand inhabitants and has in the industrial, commercial and agricultural activities the base of its economy.
In the beginning, the face-to-face activities identified an emerging difficulty in the pandemic situation: the lack of masks for children. The lack of this basic resource led the group involved in the CONNECT Project to articulate actions in partnership with students and teachers of the Schools of Education and Humanities and School of Fine Arts of PUCPR and the SCHOOL PROFESSORA ADELINA REGIS.