Hi Kidlinkers,

This is a report about the KIDLINK PROJECT in BRAZIL covering the activities developed under KIDLEADER-PORTUGUESE and KIDCAFEP-PORTUGUESE during 1995 up to the present.

This report has been written by Marisa Lucena (Kidlink Project in Brazil Coordinator) in collaboration with Pedro Falcao (Kidleader-Portuguese Coordinator), Sonia Sette (Kidleader-Portuguese Assistant Coordinator), Jose Luis de Carvalho and Maria da Luz Figueiredo de Carvalho (Kidcafe-Portuguese Coordinators) and Vera Frossard (User Support Assistant Manager).

It has been decided in the Arendal (Norway) Coordinators' Meeting (see brazilian report) that it is desirable to share once in a while, the activities developed locally with all KidleadersXXX's lists. It is very common to describe the activities in Kidleader-English but it's difficult to follow what is happenning in other KidleaderXXX's lists because of the use of different languages.

It's has been just one year since the Brazilian group that is writting this report, started working together and we feel that is time to post our first report.

KIDLEADER-PORTUGUESE was reactived in January/95, after a perios of inactivity from the members. We started by inviting new people to join us in a so-called "Brancaleone's Army" (Exercito de Brancaleone) and we received good response and new subscriptions. Now we have a substantial number of active Brazilian and Portuguese educators as well as a numebr of people from other countries and areas of interest who are also following our discussions. We are receiving an average of six/seven messages per day from various correspondents, and you can see our last 200 messages received between 25/8/95 and 24/1/96..

We are using the KIDLEADP space to: discuss projects, post announcements of our schools' activities, promote Kidlink's national workshops and seminars, present Kidlink's international projects from Kidproj, Kidforum and Kidart, put people and schools in contact and to post requests. In fact, we posted request for new helpers in Kidlink and we got several responses from possible helpers for the new WWW team and to work on the Newsletter. We also got answers from people willing to helping us to translate English files to Portuguese (ex: Carlos Naves - General File) and even from Portuguese to German (i.e. students from Escola Corcovado, a bi-lingual school - Kidforum Schedule File).

We are also interacting well with the KIDLEADER-SPANISH list helped by Sonia Fernandes, Lely Nunes and Eduardo Tornaria (Spanish Language Coordinator's Team) from Uruguay and by Epi Sepulveda from Puerto Rico, where we are exploring our language similarities. Some Spanish speaking people have subscribed to our list too. We also have people from Angola, USA and Canada subscribing to KIDLEADP.

As part of our future agenda, we have started to invite people to discuss and try to find a topic for a Brazilian National Project involving as many schools as we can handle from the entire country of Brazil. The project should discuss the social and cultural differences and similarities internal to Brazil.

KIDCAFE-PORTUGUESE is also expanding because several schools from different Brazilian States were recently connected to the Internet and are participating in Kidlink. We are calling them: Kidlink Schools. Actually, those schools (public and private ones) are located in the following States of Brazil: Ceara (2), Bahia (2), Sao Paulo (17) and Rio de Janeiro (10). There also are 4 in Portugal and 1 in Canada in Toronto. There are 25 more public schools that will join us from Salvador, Bahia, by next June (announcement received).

This work has been made possible through the Education Working Group of the Brazilian Research Network-RNP which helped to connect public and private schools of Rio de Janeiro to the Internet, and to Ibase which has been providing free access to the Internet to schools that participate in pilot projects of Project Internet in Brazil.

RESPONSE received more than 50 new Brazilian answers from new members during 95/96.

The children are using KIDCAFEP to chat and share personal experiences, to discuss some specific subjects (ex: urban violence) or real facts (ex: Timor's problem) and to develop coordinated projects.

Last year, the Recipe Project was coordinated by Vanessa Marinho and Miriam Lerner from Escola Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro and received contribuitions from several international and national schools. Most of national contributions came from Escola Marotinho in Salvador, Bahia, thanks to Katia, the teacher who provided the motivation for the project in tha school. The product of this Project was a beautiful recipe book, edited and illustrated by the children of Escola Corcovado. All the participants/schools that made a submission received a hard copy of the book via snail mail. In a future project we intend to have an electronic version of the book that will be updated as soon new contributions are sent. Any new collaborations are welcome and can be written in different languages and sent to the KIDLEADP list that will be included in the electronic version available in the near future.

The Virtual Dictionary is a new on going project, coordinated by Jose Luis de Carvalho e Regina Carvalheiro from Portugal. The project is receiving contributions from students in Brazil, Portugal and Canada (Canadians that have a Portuguese background and are interested in keeping their knowlege of the Portuguese language). The children are comparing the different uses, meanings and orthography of Portuguese words in those countries. They are also sharing slang and proverbs. The idea is to create a data base that will be frequently updated. Contacts are under way with an American software house to produce a CD ROM with images and sound to compare accents and different pronunciations of portuguese words. A current bulletin on the project is available

International collaborators from other schools that have students in the same situation as the Canadian School or that are learning the Portuguese Language are welcome to join Virtual Dictionary Project.

An interesting and unusual interaction/conversation is also happening between children from KIDCAFEP and KIDCAFES. They have discovered that they can understand both languages. Brazilian children participated in the Spanish project titled "How much is the cost of living for children in their native country". They used the price of a hamburguer to make comparisons. They are also using both lists to simply chat.

PARTICIPATION IN INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS: Some of the Brazilian's children also participated in the KIDFORUM Project: "Virtual Transaction," that was helped by our translation team that translated the messages between English and Portugese. We also participated for the first time in KIDART SHOW with Manoel Araujo Filho's schools (Grupo Patnet). He is already preparing a new set of pictures to send to KidArt, and he is planning to promote an exposition in Sao Paulo in the near future. Another exposition of his students' work is going to happen next April in the Educando 96, an event that is going to take place as part of COMDEX 96, in Rio de Janeiro. Kidlink will also have space for five presentations in this event. Unfortunately, Brazilian schools have not had the opportunity to participate in Kidlink IRCs, because of the quality of phone lines and the number of channels that are available to schools. Centro Educacional da Lagoa in Rio de Janeiro is already in touch with Kidlink's IRC team to get more information about improving the quality of the school hardware and software in order to activate the first connection Kidlink IRC in Brazil.

KIDLINK PROJECT in BRASIL: This project officially started in September/95 and has being supported by the GT of Education of the Comite Gestor of The Internet Brazil, and has Marisa Lucena as the general coordinator (see announcement).

One pilot project involves the idea of Kidlink Houses, based on a similar house that exists in Arendal, Norway. A Kidlink House will be a space open to children who cannot afford to have computers at home or in their schools. The first Kidlink House will be open soon coordinated by Marisa Lucena's and managed by Miriam Lerner's. The house will define standards to be followed by other houses all over the country. Sonia Sette already offered to open and coordinate a Kidlink House in Recife, Pernambuco.

The Kidlink Project in Brazil also promoted Odd, Jose Luis, Maria da Luz, Lely and Sonia's visit to Brazil in November/95. Workshops and seminars in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Recife, Santa Catarina and Sao Paulo were organized and coordinated by Marisa Lucena, Sergio Fialho, Sonia Sette, Raul Wazlawick and Fred Litto, respectively.

During Odd's stay in Brazil, we also had private meetings with all the people already involved or interested in getting involved with Kidlink Projects in the near future. In Rio de Janeiro's workshop, a girl named Michelle Lerner Melamed gave a touching speech about how important Kidlink has become in her life. She translated her speech to English and it will be posted in the coming Newsletter.

The previously mentioned Workshops and Seminars plus several presentations in conferences, schools and other events (ex: Faculdade Carioca's IV Meeting, SBIE96) and interviews to the press are giving a national prominence to Kidlink in Brazil. We may be able to produce a Multimidia CD ROM about Kidlink coordinated by Laura Coutinho, and under the auspices of CELTEC , an educational software development department in Centro Integrado da Lagoa, Rio de Janeiro.

Now we have official Kidlink teams in several states of Brazil including: Vanessa Marinho (Rio, RJ), Mauro Pequeno (Fortaleza, Ceara), Sergio Fialho (Salvador, Bahia), Manoel Araujo Filho (Sao Paulo, SP), Fernanda Campos (Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais) and Celi Taffarel (Recife, Pernambuco). More helpers have been contacted and are coming from Maranhao, Santa Catarina, R.G. do Sul and Brasilia. All those new volunteers have the duty of disseminating information about Kidlink International and National Organizations and to link schools to our spaces and services.

A World-Wide Web site (to be announced) is being built by Sergio Crespo from Colegio Andrews (Rio de Janeiro). There you will be able to see the pictures and the reports of the events that happend in Brazil. In addition, at this site a Kidlink Person will be able to get transparencies and documents that will allow them to give standard presentations about Kidlink in their States. find Odd's slides are now available in portuguese.

Kidlink Projects in Brazil have really just started and we intend to hold the Coordinators' International Kidlink Society Meeting and an open Kidlink Seminar accessible to the general public about the Kidlink organization and services in August/96 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

We hope that this annual report can help Kidlinkers obtain an overview of what we've been doing to promote Kidlink in Brazil, since we have started to work as a Kidlink team.

We wish to hear your comments, suggestions, and specially to hear what is being done in all KIDLEADERXXX's lists. This information and examples will help us improve Kidlink's agenda.