Latin America, Marginalised Communities, Social Capoeira projects, Special Needs

Fundação Catarinense de Educação Especial, CEDUF

Project

Fundação Catarinense de Educação Especial, CEDUF – Centro de Educação Física

Location

Nossa Senhora do Rosário, Sao Jose, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Target

The objective of CEDUF is to produce knowledge, train professionals, advise special education services in the area of Physical School Education, Physical Activity and Health and Sports. It carries out sports training, movement, gymnastics and bodybuilding with the purpose of including disabled people in society through sports.

Impact

For the last 5 years, CEDUF has held a Special Capoeira Encontro. The Catarinense Foundation for Special Education (FCEE), a subset of the CEDUF, hosted the Encontro after conducting a survey on how many institutions from Santa Catarina offered capoeira classes inclusive of people with disabilities. The municipalities of São José, Brusque and Nova Veneza have hosted the encontro in the past with an average of 200 people. In 2016, participants from the municipalities of Garopaba, Pinhalzinho, Guabiruba, Camboriú and Rio do Sul also attended, in addition to participants from the original Encontro, coming from São José, Brusque, Biguaçu, Celso Ramos and Nova Veneza.

“Socialization and citizenship were the strengths of my father’s philosophy, but I never imagined that capoeira would reach such a high point,” said Manoel Nascimento Machado, Mestre Nenel, son of Mestre Bimba, in praising the success of the Encounter.”I’ve never witnessed such a solid job with people with disabilities, both in terms of quality and quantity of students and the level of organization,” he said.