A hub for the Citizen Attitude project is inaugurated in Santa Cruz, offering 500 workshop slots for young people.

The project launch was attended by the young people, their families, authorities, and representatives of civil society - Press Release

The Special Secretariat for Citizenship and Family of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro (Secid) inaugurated, this Friday (April 10th), in Santa Cruz, West Zone of Rio, the first center of the Citizen Attitude project. 500 places will be offered for young people aged between 15 and 18 to participate in workshops focusing on culture, creative economy, life projects and citizenship actions. The objective is that, at the end of four months, the young person will gain autonomy to self-manage their personal and professional growth, becoming a monitor of civility. Each participant will receive a scholarship of R$ 350 per month to enable their studies.

The project launch ceremony took place at the Santa Cruz hub, in the Center Shopping mall, and was attended by young people, their families, as well as authorities and representatives of civil society. The hub's inauguration began with a musical performance. The Municipal Secretary of Citizenship and Family of Rio de Janeiro, Otoni de Paula Filho, explained the motivation for developing the project.

"The intention is to prepare young people to be true citizens, exercising youth leadership with autonomy. We want them to be role models in their communities. It is a privilege to start this project in the West Zone," said Secretary Otoni.

The project will benefit young people like 16-year-old Lucas Guilherme Oliveira. A resident of the Cesarão community, he has already taken a photography course and saw the project as an opportunity to further his skills.

"I'm in my second year of school and I intend to work in the media field. That's why I was interested in this opportunity," he said.

To participate in the project, young people registered for free and submitted a series of documents in order to meet the criteria.
Required. All information is available. on the project websiteThe space has three air-conditioned rooms, equipped with tables, chairs, beanbag chairs, and computers to accommodate students and the project's technical team. The spaces feature graffiti by the artist Carla Felizardo (Negra Graffiti), a cultural activist and coordinator of social projects. The "Atitude Cidadã" (Citizen Attitude) project is part of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall's "Cidadania Carioca" (Carioca Citizenship) program, which develops projects, integrated with other public policies, to raise awareness of the pillars of citizenship and basic rules for living in society. The project will serve 1.500 young people. In total, the "Atitude Cidadã" project will serve, through a free selection process, 1.500 young residents of communities in the neighborhoods of Santa Cruz, Irajá, and Penha.
with 500 places for each region. The Irajá and Penha centers will have their headquarters open and classes will begin in the coming months. The opening of [other locations] is also planned.
New job openings in other neighborhoods of Rio.

Mentoring and tutoring

During the four months of the project, the young people will develop a series of activities. In the Citizenship in Action workshops, they will undergo mentoring and tutoring processes applied by professionals with varied profiles such as psychologists and social workers. The introduction to the content production process and cultural and community communication strategies will be the theme of the Creative Economy workshops. Youth entrepreneurship, social marketing, and the digital economy will be covered, in addition to techniques in graphic design, audiovisual production, photography, filmmaking, video editing, digital marketing, and artificial intelligence. The focus will be on employability, social innovation, and integration into digital economy chains.

The Integrated Arts workshops will use musical repertoire as an artistic, pedagogical, and emotional axis, allowing young people to recognize music as an expression of identity and collective memory. The activities will lead participants to reflect on personal and territorial journeys, connecting their own experiences to the narratives present in the songs. In the Citizenship in Action workshop, young people will work on concepts of self-knowledge, self-esteem, ethics, and civic awareness as a basis for building individual and collective life projects. They will be encouraged, for example, to create their "Maps of Desires" and Life Projects, transforming dreams into achievable goals.

Finally, in the Local Community Actions, students will become civility monitors to promote citizenship. To this end, discussion circles will be held.
Conversations, educational campaigns, and exhibitions will be part of the program. At the end of the process, the participants' families will be invited to a screening of a documentary that will showcase the young person's journey in the project. Throughout the program, the young people will act as civility monitors and replicate the knowledge gained in their communities, valuing the place where they live.

The weekly workload will consist of three hours of training activities per week for each student, with classes in the morning, afternoon, and evening. In-person meetings will take place once a week at the Polo headquarters. There will also be one field trip activity per month.

Regions served

The regions covered by the project were selected taking into account the Social Progress Indicators (SPI) and Social Territories. A technical-territorial methodology was also considered, combining criteria of social vulnerability, population density and location, the Administrative Regions and geographical proximity to the poles.