Since 2013 we have a partnership with Elo, an institution that creates opportunities to change teenagers’ lives through their preparation and placement for the workplace in the future. Through this cooperation our exchange students participate sharing their culture and giving to the students an opportunity to cohabit with people with different habits, values and traditions.

Along this year, ELO will promote debates with special themes among their students. This month’s theme is “peace” , due to the World Peace Day.

Through cultural exchange we aim to contribute to World Peace. We believe that by connecting people from different cultures we are encouraging respect for diversity.

So last Friday (08/01) we engaged international students from different nationalities to contribute to this thematic, by sharing information about their lives in their respective countries.

We had the following exchange students participating of the event: The Finnish Emmi who lived one year in Brazil and currently is an intern at Elo; The American Katie who is a volunteer at Elo; the Norwegian Birgitte who is a volunteer at the  Finnish program Muuvit and our first volunteer from Thailand, Nattida, who was a volunteer in 3 different projects during her 8 weeks in Brazil. Besides our exchange students, our team also participated of this meeting! The Egyptian Ibrahim, our local coordinator, shared many information and curiosities about his country and our intern Amy also shared her experiences abroad.

It was a special afternoon!  We’re sure that it contributed to everybody who was present to learn more about different lifestyles and nations. And hopefully they are all more opened now to respect multiple realities and beliefs. Moments like this are what we proudly do as BE.

Check it out some photos of this great meeting: