FROM OPPRESSION TO LIBERATION:

Five hundred lives transformed by the literacy- awareness promoted by the Cícera Tereza dos Santos Educational Community Association

Abstract

Since I was 14 years old, I was a young dreamer, born in the small town of Água Branca,
State of Paraíba, who today, as a man-teacher, I have been teaching literacy to people who did
not have the opportunity to attend a classroom, as well as many of my family who spent
years, decades and unfortunately, often even a lifetime, without even learning to sign their
own name. Signing one's name is our first act of citizenship for a person, a mark of our
existence in the world and the coexistence of our social identity as cultural beings, "producers
and makers of knowledge and knowledge" that make up a strongly graphocentric society and
alienate those who do not be. I dreamed big and made my dream come true, when I saw the
birth of the Cícera Tereza dos Santos Educational Community Association - ACECTS, a
posthumous tribute to my maternal grandmother, who was a great inspiration in my life, for
her loving kindness. I was the founder of ACECTS, in the spring of 2009, which, in principle,
was a small improvised space in the backyard of my own house, on the outskirts of the city of
Mauá, Greater ABC Paulista, São Paulo, an area of ​​adverse possession and also preservation
environmental, bordering the city of Ribeirão Pires - which causes the non-intervention of
actions and Public Policies favorable to the development and growth of the Neighborhood,
causing many difficulties for residents who seek in other neighborhoods, access to essential
services, such as supermarkets , pharmacies, health units, schools etc. which makes the
growth of the local economy unfeasible. With a lot of sacrifice, I managed to erect a space
made of wood and unpaved floor, not occupying even 9m 2 and I had very few resources so
that I could develop literacy activities. Everything worked based on improvisation, where the
small space contrasted with the surrounding houses, built in masonry. The residents of the
region are people who, for the most part, work as janitors, street sweepers, bricklayers,
painters, electricians and a few as metallurgists, and the vast majority are migrants from the
north, northeast and central west regions of Brazil who come in search of better living
conditions. ACECTS acts gradually amid this scenario, offering free of charge the opportunity
for literacy of an eminently ontological, pragmatic, peremptory, reflective, awareness-raising,
transforming, political-ethical character aiming at the insertion and/or social reintegration of
each of the students who are engaging in this literacy process, based on their own daily
experience and baggage, guided by Freirean Pedagogy. We emphasize that no less than 500
people have already been literate, since the foundation of ACECTS, to the present day, which
are mostly composed of elderly people, aged between 60 and 85 years, who have had their
lives transformed, starting to enjoy their real rights and understand which duties are inherent
to them, thus enabled to act in society, freeing themselves from any oppression, through
dialogicity and criticality.