In such a challenging period for education, innovating in learning practices is increasingly important. To foster the transformations that allow it to continue connecting students and teachers, despite the physical distance imposed by the pandemic, Neoenergia supports institutions in several Brazilian states. On the International Day of Education, celebrated on April 28, the company reinforces the importance of these investments, which represent a bet on a future with sustainable development. One of these initiatives is the project Educational Ideas and Practices Desk, conducted by Neoenergia Institute, the company's social arm, which had to be adapted to a digital format since 2020. Several other online actions were implemented with a focus on energy efficiency, benefiting thousands of students in the concession areas of the group's distributors.
“The past few months have been challenging, but we haven't stopped. The strength to continue came from the collective responsibility to support education networks, managers, teachers, students and families. We thought, rethought, recreated and innovated our way of doing things. It was not an easy year, but we believed and managed to get closer, even if from a distance. We reallocated our investments so that strategies became digital, managing to maintain the mission of supporting education networks and contributing to the quality of Brazilian public education", states the director-president of the Neoenergia Institute, Renata Chagas.
In partnership with the Integrated Center for Sustainable Development Studies and Programs (CIEDS), the Neoenergia Institute works with teachers and school administrators, through the Educational Ideas and Practices Desk, in order to consolidate a network for the dissemination of ideas and innovations in education, through the systematization of educational practices that work with the ten general competencies of the National Common Base Curriculum (BNCC), among which we have knowledge, scientific, critical and creative thinking, cultural repertoire, communication and digital culture. The training is aimed at professionals from the municipal networks of cities in the states of São Paulo, Bahia, Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte.
In 2020 there was the release of the special page “Education and Covid-19", with the purpose of curating content, events and good practices, in addition to enabling professionals in the area of education to disseminate content and also their initiatives related to the context of the pandemic. In addition, within the scope of the project, three distance courses were created and implemented.
Through the Social Impact Acceleration Program, Neoenergia Institute, in partnership with the Ekloos Institute, also supported initiatives aimed at education. One of the participating social organizations was the Instituto Meta Educação, which developed podcasts aimed at children and teenagers who are students from public schools in Rio de Janeiro. In “Zuri's Secret", the story of the Vaccine Uprising was told, contextualizing it with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Energy Efficiency
The distributors Coelba (BA) and Elektro (SP) trained, in 2020, 2,202 educators in a 100% virtual way in the themes of energy efficiency, safety in the use of electric energy and renewable energies, environment and sustainability, through the Education with Energy project. The initiative started to train educators, starting in March last year, through a distance learning platform: educacaocomenergia.com.br. The initiative is part of the Energy Efficiency Program, regulated by the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel).
In the spaces of Energy Classes, 5,200 students and more than 11,000 people from the communities were served from January to March 17, 2020 - when the presential activities were suspended due to the pandemic. These spaces, where the basic concepts of combating the waste of electricity are disseminated, operate at the Energy Museum and the Pituaçu Solar Plant (Coelba); at the Arena de Pernambuco solar plant and at the Noronha II solar plant (Celpe); and in the Wind Energy Ecospot (Cosern); in addition to two mobile units in Bahia and Pernambuco. In 2020, an investment of R$ 5.9 million was allocated to the project. In all of them, WWF-Brasil and Education Departments in the concession areas are partners of Neoenergia.
“With the suspension of classes due to the pandemic, we needed to adapt and interrupt some projects temporarily. We promoted distance education on the efficient use of electricity, training students and teachers using problem-based learning methodologies, design thinking and content that are part of the new BNCC. Thus, we continued to encourage energy savings among students and teachers at a time when people are at home more, needing to save", explains Neoenergia's Energy Efficiency manager, Ana Christina Mascarenhas.