Today we had the pleasure to meet the Mayor of Curitiba, Gustavo Fruet. A fantastic welcome to the city that we will be based in this year.
You can read about the meeting today in Portuguese here http://www.curitiba.pr.gov.br/noticias/ingleses-ensinarao-idioma-a-estudantes-de-curitiba/32623
The English translation is as follows:
Teach English language to students of Curitiba
Two young English city of Newcastle that are in Curitiba to participate in a project volunteer were gathered in this Tuesday (15) with the mayor Gustavo Fruet. The meeting at the office of the City the pair presented part of the schedule of actions that should be developed over the next few months in partnership with the Municipal Secretary of Education. Their goal is to teach the English language to needy children and be in Brazil during the period of the World Cup.
Craig Robson and Michael Gardner belong to international organization Lionsraw of football fans. Along with five other English will be for approximately one year in Curitiba.
Officially the first activity of the project for the teaching of language will happen on April 22. Will be a training involving the seven British volunteers and teachers municipal of five schools where the project will be involved. No meeting in the Center of Continuing Education of the Municipal Secretary of Education will be presented the didactic material prepared by British Institute that will be used in English classes with the students.
Although the Curitiba there is little more than a week Craig Robson and Michael Gardner already have friends in the city. Also know part of teachers and students with whom they will work. Since May of last year the double has participated in a cultural interchange involving five schools of municipal network of Curitiba with students and teachers of elementary school Holystone the city of Newcastle England.
The children of the two countries exchanged letters, photos, drawings and information about the culture sports and habits of each one. The rapprochement between the groups also happened through videoconferencing, recordings of songs and videos that showed the routines of children in their cities.
"We have great expectations for the beginning of the activities with the children, in particular with which we started contacts through cultural exchanges" said Michael Gardner. The British prepared themselves for the coming to Brazil. The pair learned Portuguese and second Craig enjoy the conviviality here to strengthen the new language. "It is not easy to learn the Portuguese, but we have made a concerted effort because we want to promote key exchanges for all the project" said Craig.
The municipal schools that are taking part in the project are Maria Augusta Jouve, Doutel de Andrade, Romario Martins, Francisco Frischmanns and the Unit of Integral Education Wenceslau Braz. The schools were chosen because they have the discipline of English in the curriculum which facilitates communication between students English and Brazilian.
Also gathered with the British the municipal secretary of Education, Roberlayne Borges Roballo, the Media Gladimir Birth in addition to members of the staff of the department of elementary education and the director of the department of Social Media Marcos Giovanella.
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Sunday, 6 April 2014
Bem vindos a Curitiba
We arrived into Curitiba on Tuesday night after travelling for around 23 hours and three time zones. Our first few days in the city have been to explore by foot and find out about our new home.
We've also met some people along the way including an American guy who is getting married this Wednesday, an English teacher from Birmingham who has lived here for ten years and an English teacher from Cambridge who loves British things.
The people of Curitiba have been extremely friendly and it's seems to be a general trait of the Brazilian population. We stand out massively when we are walking around the city, but once people realise why we are here maybe the Portuguese will be put into use!
Bem vindos a Curitiba!!
Sunday, 30 March 2014
Hat Trick Project
Michael featured in the Evening Chronicle yesterday so if you have the paper it was on page 40. If not don't worry as we have a copy online here:
If you would like to know more about Hat Trick you can visit the website www.hattrickproject.org/
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
Waving our way to a hideaway!
The wait will soon be over and we will be heading to Curitiba. It's a weird feeling as I have just visited St. James' Park to watch Newcastle lose 3-0 to Everton for the last time in 2014. The next live game I will watch is likely to be Iran v Nigeria in the Arena da Baixada (unless we get tickets for either Atletico PR, Coritiba or Parana).
A full range of emotions as we enter our last few days in Newcastle. Happy to finally be starting the next chapter of our journey. Nervous about the challenges we are likely to face like the language. Anxious to start the project work and make lasting impressions. Excited to have the opportunity to be in a World Cup host country. Sad to leave family and friends behind. Ecstatic to not have to watch NUFC in person again for a while....
The current playlist that we're flicking through to keep us going include:
A full range of emotions as we enter our last few days in Newcastle. Happy to finally be starting the next chapter of our journey. Nervous about the challenges we are likely to face like the language. Anxious to start the project work and make lasting impressions. Excited to have the opportunity to be in a World Cup host country. Sad to leave family and friends behind. Ecstatic to not have to watch NUFC in person again for a while....
The current playlist that we're flicking through to keep us going include:
"Everything happens for a reason, things work out the way they were supposed to so go with the flow. Keep it fresh!"
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
We are Curitiba...STILL a World Cup city
We've linked songs over the last year to our mood, feelings and events that we have been doing. For whatever reason some songs have just stuck. For example:
When we climbing Ben Nevis this Curtis Mayfield tune seemed to fit. It also reminded me about when I did Machu Picchu and as a group we decided to wake up at 3am to run to the sun gate at 4am which would make us some of the first people to arrive before the other 500 tourists.
Obviously we are both relieved that Curitiba remains a World Cup city after FIFA confirmed the stadium would be ready. It was always going to be our city, but now we can use the World Cup to help create positive memories!
When we climbing Ben Nevis this Curtis Mayfield tune seemed to fit. It also reminded me about when I did Machu Picchu and as a group we decided to wake up at 3am to run to the sun gate at 4am which would make us some of the first people to arrive before the other 500 tourists.
We had the Get Lucky - Daft Punk ft Pharrell tune which was a constant throughout the summer and our beach event, but also the Brazil Days.
One of the Brazil Days went absolutely crazy when Fuse - Antenna came on the shuffle. It made the event though as pupils and staff just broke out in dance!
Of course there have been other songs that stick out across the year, but these were the main ones. We are still waiting for the VISA and hopefully we have some good news in the next few weeks. There are two songs at the moment as we play the waiting game including a Curitiba inspired video!
Another Pharrell version of Happy!
Obviously we are both relieved that Curitiba remains a World Cup city after FIFA confirmed the stadium would be ready. It was always going to be our city, but now we can use the World Cup to help create positive memories!
Saturday, 8 February 2014
Road to Brazil...Stadium Delay...Visa Delay...Perdido!
We started our fundraising a year ago today, climbing Ben Nevis, which makes it hard to comprehend the impact a decision we made in November 2012 is now influencing our lives and decisions as we sit waiting in Newcastle.
We spoke last night about how proud we were of what we had achieved given limited resources, a target of £10,000 to support us and no experience on how to start the "Newcastle to Brazil" journey. We started with a year in Brazil from January, but if truth be known since we decided in 2012 Brazil has been a major part of our lives whether that was fundraising, partying, with friends and in sport. We've both developed as people and made new friends along the way. It does become difficult to say goodbye or see you soon after spending time with people, but we've learnt to deal with that and soon that will be us. You realise the people who care about you and those who are interested in the idea behind our story. Luckily we've made some good friends to help us settle into Brazil.
We've had our fair share of media interest which is brilliant, maybe it might inspire people to take a step in the direction they would like. We can draw our inspiration from the people who are able to raise £40,000+ for charities like Tiny Lives and Childrens Heart Foundation. It is all inspirational!
We came up with the idea of a Brazil Day and yesterday we held our 10th at Star of the Sea Primary school. We raised about £600, but with it being a last minute decision we didn't know what to expect. I had personally forgotten what the experience was like, not only for us delivering, but for the pupils and students from International House Newcastle. They are literally celebrities for the day with children swarming around them to get an autograph and ask questions about their country. For us it is nice to see the young people enjoy the day taking part in different activities that seems to be catching the imagination of the schools as they are now recommending it to others!
Our VISA is still in limbo as we wait for it to be processed which is proving difficult especially as we both finished work in expectation to go. They say that happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. So we should have left on 29th January, but instead on the 7th February we had 455 children engaged in a Brazil Day. Positivity!
We have heard about the stadium situation in Curitiba and hope that by the 18th February they have came to a safe decision. Whether they hold World Cup games or not we couldn't really have a Project Curitiba and not be based in the city. Unfortunately if they can't hold the games then maybe we can come up with a solution, we've already came up with random ideas before and it has turned out to be quite good. 10 Brazil Days and 3894 pupils engaged.
It's been a fantastic year for us, a pleasure to meet all the people we have and hopefully we've left a lasting memory of Newcastle for you to remember.
The waiting game continues for us and Curitiba. Ate logo!
We spoke last night about how proud we were of what we had achieved given limited resources, a target of £10,000 to support us and no experience on how to start the "Newcastle to Brazil" journey. We started with a year in Brazil from January, but if truth be known since we decided in 2012 Brazil has been a major part of our lives whether that was fundraising, partying, with friends and in sport. We've both developed as people and made new friends along the way. It does become difficult to say goodbye or see you soon after spending time with people, but we've learnt to deal with that and soon that will be us. You realise the people who care about you and those who are interested in the idea behind our story. Luckily we've made some good friends to help us settle into Brazil.
We've had our fair share of media interest which is brilliant, maybe it might inspire people to take a step in the direction they would like. We can draw our inspiration from the people who are able to raise £40,000+ for charities like Tiny Lives and Childrens Heart Foundation. It is all inspirational!
We came up with the idea of a Brazil Day and yesterday we held our 10th at Star of the Sea Primary school. We raised about £600, but with it being a last minute decision we didn't know what to expect. I had personally forgotten what the experience was like, not only for us delivering, but for the pupils and students from International House Newcastle. They are literally celebrities for the day with children swarming around them to get an autograph and ask questions about their country. For us it is nice to see the young people enjoy the day taking part in different activities that seems to be catching the imagination of the schools as they are now recommending it to others!
Our VISA is still in limbo as we wait for it to be processed which is proving difficult especially as we both finished work in expectation to go. They say that happiness is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. So we should have left on 29th January, but instead on the 7th February we had 455 children engaged in a Brazil Day. Positivity!
We have heard about the stadium situation in Curitiba and hope that by the 18th February they have came to a safe decision. Whether they hold World Cup games or not we couldn't really have a Project Curitiba and not be based in the city. Unfortunately if they can't hold the games then maybe we can come up with a solution, we've already came up with random ideas before and it has turned out to be quite good. 10 Brazil Days and 3894 pupils engaged.
It's been a fantastic year for us, a pleasure to meet all the people we have and hopefully we've left a lasting memory of Newcastle for you to remember.
The waiting game continues for us and Curitiba. Ate logo!
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