Storys

Khalifa (9 years old) is commonly known as a “disobedient” boy. He is tall for his age, strong like his father, who was also in the Education Center for years, and many other children are afraid of him and his unfortunately often violent way of solving problems. When he came to my piano room one day and said that he wanted lessons too, the other children immediately warned me: Khalifa has no concentration at all, he is just doing stupid things and he is disobedient. I, of course, ignored these warnings. And what can I say: Khalifa is very good in learning playing the piano, almost shy and he can sometimes concentrate for a whole hour … what music can do to people …

João Junior Cardoso de Pina, better known as Nhu Preto, came to the Education Center at the age of 9 and did not leave until he finished high school, when he was 18 years old. He was always one of the best football players in each age group he passed through. In 2022 he got a visa for Portugal. On his farewell, he published the following text on his Facebook page: “With great affection and pride I would like to thank this great Delta Cultura football school, where they welcomed me from the beginning with love and where I spent my childhood and learned a lot. A thank you is really very little for what you have done for me. Thanks to all educators, thanks from the bottom of my heart … you are more than family for me. I love this football school Delta Cultura, may God bless us. No matter where I go, I take you with me in my heart.”

While doing homework, a conversation between my son Rodrigo (10 years old) and Katiliany (8 years old) arose – as I believe a very meaningful one. When Katiliany was able to easily answer all my questions about a certain topic, Rodrigo asked her: “Why do you always know everything when Cutchinha is asking you something, but when you write a test in school, you forget everything?” Katiliany immediately had an explanation for this: “Well, because in school it is real, and here it’s just a game.” (Author’s note: at which “form of learning” – real or game – a child remembers more can be heard, among others, from the neurobiologist Andrew Huberman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx3U64IXFOY )

I was about to unlock the piano room when a group of 4 girls rushed in. Tissiane (10 years old) was very excited: “Florian, Florian, tell us: does heaven exist or not?” I was a bit surprised by this question. “Do you mean heaven and God?” I asked her. But that wasn’t what she wanted to know. So I had to think briefly about what the pedagogically correct answer would be. But my brief pause prompted the other girls to voice their opinions: “Of course heaven exists. Look up.” As a result, Tissianes nerves were obviously torn. Very excited, she told the other children: “Okay, if heaven exists, then take a ladder, climb up and bring me a piece of heaven.”

Fabricio is seven years old and in second grade. He comes to the Education Center every day. He likes to play the piano and takes IT classes, but his passion is being an assistant coach for the U17s.He is often rather unfocused when doing his homework, but as soon as he sees U17 players coming to training, he rushes to finish the homework to support Zito as an assistant coach. “Let’s go Zito, the training starts,” it then echoes through the Education Center. More than once. You can really see and hear Fabricios joy.

There are many farmers in Achada Grande (plateau in the municipality of Tarrafal) because there is enough water there. Delta Cultura announced a fruit tree distribution in this region and on the day of the distribution many people came with their buckets and bins. They were all very interested in returning to their gardens with as many fruit trees as possible. The rush grew steadily during the distribution and it was no longer possible to organize an orderly handover. The closer we got to the end, the bigger the whirl got. There were farmers who days later went to the responsible for agriculture in the city council and claimed that Delta Cultura had distributed trees, but only for those they wanted to. Of course, that was not true, but it showed very clearly how important and welcome these tree distributions were and are. This campaign has impressively demonstrated the importance of the Delta Cultura tree nursery.