I SEE YOU changing lives
Most students in Divino Espirito Santo — a dangerous neighbourhood in Vila Velha, Brazil — won’t finish elementary school.
You will be changing their lives forever with your charitable giving. With your support they will become passionate about reading!
Give the Gift of Learning!
Let’s start a reading revolution
Changing lives through passion for reading. Books change lives.
Tia Nenzinha Elementary School
One school at a time
Your journey to transform lives by sowing seeds of love for reading starts in Divino Espirito Santo, a violent neighbourhood in Vila Velha, Brazil. Your support will change the lives of 150 children at Tia Nenzinha Elementary School.
Our goal is to raise $5,600 to benefit all 150 students and their families to have a lasting impact on the whole community.
The Cycle of Backwardness
How a poor education leads to constant struggle
www.philanthropy.icu | Holistica Foundation Inc
It goes like this: Brazilians do not like to read -> Brazilians have a hard time to learn -> Brazilians abandon school -> Brazilians have a hard time finding jobs and Brazilian companies have an equally hard time to find well trained people -> Productivity is relatively low -> Prices are relatively higher -> Life is hard for most Brazilians.
The many causes
Education
So, it all starts with a poor learning environment at school and at home where reading is not a common habit at all.
44% of Brazilians do not read and 30% have never bought a single book in their entire lives. (More here — in Portuguese).
The average Brazilian household have no more than 10 books. Actually the vast majority have zero books or only one – the Bible (or the New Testament).
The situation is no different at school: 55% of the schools in Brazil don’t have a library.
The obvious result is backwardness. For the average Brazilian it seems like life walks backwards or stands still.
Social upward mobility is not happening.
If you’re a girl and your mother is a maid, chances are that you’re going to grow up and walk on the same path as your mother’s.
For boys it is the same pattern, or worse: many poor young boys end up working for the organized crime – drug related enterprises mainly.
Violence, crime and the law
Violence is an everyday thing in Brazil. It’s common place. It is something one borns in to and ends up getting used to it.
No wonder why there are 60,000 deaths per year in Brazil and no one seams to really care!
Yes. You read it right: 60 thousand people are murdered every single year in Brazil. As a comparison, during the whole Vietnam war, the US military lost 58,220 people.
It’s a WAR in Brazil. An ugly one. A bloody one.
92% of the dead are young man and half (more than 30,000), are of ages ranging from 15 to 29 years old. (Read more here — in Portuguese).
How can a society improve its situation with that kind of terrible figures?
Drug consumption and related violence – everywhere.
Poverty in Divino Espirito Santo neighbourhood — Vila Velha, Brazil
Book’s length comparison
Below you can check out the typical books read by 9 to 11 years old kids in the USA and in Brazil.
Brazilian books aimed at children (and even at teenagers), have few text and many pictures because if they don’t, most people won’t be interested in reading them.
That’s why, a simple number-of-pages comparison reveals so much:
- USA: Harry Potter – 320 pages
- USA: Diary of a Wimpy Kid – 217 pages
- USA: The Lightning Theif – 377 pages
- Brazil: Minha Tia Genoveva – 31 pages
- Brazil: A Menina que queria ser Anjo – 20 pages
- Brazil: Asas de Dentro – 61 pages
- Brazil: Princesas sao diferentes – 47 pages
Reading Gap: Brazil & OECD
Brazilian education is 260 years behind OCDE’s countries in reading.
What? What does it mean? How can an education system be so far behind? More than two centuries? 
Yes. Unfortunately, yes. You can check it out here.
In Brazil only 1 in every 4 people is literate — reading, writing and math.
Brazil’s education system is failing its people. No wonder why productivity is so low and higher paying jobs so rare (proportionally to the population).
There are around 13 million unemployed people in Brazil. Some pundits say that’s an optimistic figure considering the recent years.
One of the most important reasons for that sad situation is education, or the lack of it.
In education, reading plays a huge role. When one likes to read learning becomes easier.
The Cycle of Backwardness keeps turning, and turning, year after year…
A poor reading experience in school and at home leads to weak learning environments also at home and at school. Bad education.
Bad education imposes high barriers to enter in the workplace. Finding a job is hard, specially for the young and inexperienced.
Black market jobs – such as drugs – become the only viable way to go for many young boys and girls.
Life is hard and the future is clouded without a better education.
260 years behind.
Ziraldo – one of the most famous Brazilian authors – talks about our work and how it helps to solve the reading issue.
Previous Experiences: it works!
When you sow the seeds of love for reading all will change. And a whole lot!
We did it before in the neighbour town of Vitoria, in a similar school, in a similar neighbourhood, with similar problems and the results are hugely positive!
We also did it in Minas Gerais State, Rio de Janeiro State, Mato Grosso State… And we need YOU so we can do it again and again.
Let’s sow seeds of literacy, this time in Vila Velha at Tia Nenzinha Elementary.
Your kind donation is life changing.
Donate today.
Thank you so much!
What We Do
We work hard to transform the lives of students in the most impoverished areas in Brazil. Our goal is to incite their curiosity and stress the importance of literacy in their lives in hopes that one day each student will have the opportunity to tell their own amazing story.
By gifting students new and incredibly engaging literature books, we are sure that we can begin a reading revolution!
Join us today!
Our Story
Holistica Foundation Inc is a nonprofit organization aiming at alleviating social and economic differences by helping the current poor generation of students to become wealthier compared to their parents.
The non-profit was created by Education, Management and IT professionals who were tired of the “someone-has-to-do-something” mantra and decided to take matters on their own hands and to do what needs to be done.
The chief idea behind Holistica Foundation’s creation is to start a ripple effect in reading and literacy.
To keep it simple: help a child to really enjoy reading a good book is the solid base for great achievements in life.
Get in Touch. Get Involved.
We are happy to hear your feedback, suggestions and more. Consider becoming a sower of literacy and help us get more seeds of love for reading bearing wonderful fruits.
