Program in schools breaks silence on mining in MG – 03/20/2023 – Environment

In the Minas Gerais schools affected by the dam failure in the Mariana region, there is no critical debate about the impacts of mining on the communities. The conclusion, based on research at the Federal University of Minas Gerais and the Federal University of Ouro Preto, became the basis of training aimed at teachers that began in May 2022.

The work of researchers who are part of Gema (Education, Mining and Environment Study Group) is the main part of a repair program launched in 2021 with the aim of reversing the “pedagogical silence”, a term coined by UFMG professor Maria Isabel Antunes -Rocha, doctor of education.

The surveys identified an intention to avoid problematizing the mining activity, especially in relation to social and environmental risks. Upon hearing reports from the affected teachers, the study group observed a lack of knowledge about the dam’s dangers.

Maria Isabel says that knowledge would help in emergency actions and in the search for rights.

With that in mind, UFMG and UFOP created the Escola do Rio Doce Extension Program, which has several fronts. The goal is to train around 6,200 teachers who work in public schools in the 36 municipalities in Minas Gerais affected by the rupture of the Fundão dam, in Mariana.

The project received BRL 40 million from the Renova Foundation, an entity maintained by the mining companies Samarco, BHP Billiton and Vale.

The plan, which will be conducted by the two federal universities, includes vacancies for a graduate course, the production of didactic material and the training of two groups in the Mining, Dam Breaking and Revitalization: Challenges for Education improvement course.

The first class began in the first half of 2022 with 3,000 educators, who participated in four months of training with weekly remote meetings. Readings, conversation circles and discussions were held.

At the end of the course, participants prepared an experimental pedagogical plan delivered to tutors in December 2022, with proposals for actions for the classroom. Each school will have two plans selected by the course coordinators. The plans will give rise to didactic material that will be shared with schools in the Rio Doce Basin region.

For Professor Ângela Souza Luz, tutor of a group of educators in the municipality of Barra Longa, this course should have been taken earlier. “That way, at the time of the breakup, we would be aware of what happened,” she says.

The school where Angela has been teaching for 30 years was hit by mud when the Fundão dam broke. Despite the geographic proximity to mining, the subject was distant.

The teacher says that, on the day of the disaster, when the tailings had already reached nearby municipalities, the night classes were held as on any other day. At dawn, the mud reached Barra Longa and destroyed the first floor of the school.

For four days, school activities were stopped. On the way back, classes took place on the second floor, while the machines worked on the floor below. “It was a period of trouble, and we didn’t say anything about it, neither with the people outside who were working, nor with the students. A total silencing”, he says.

When collecting reports from teachers from schools directly affected, members of Gema observed contradictory feelings in relation to the collapse. On the one hand, there is the vision of mining as responsible for the income of several generations; on the other, there is the damage caused by the disaster.

Master in education and tutor in the improvement course in the municipality of Mariana, Gissele Quirino observes this conflict between teachers closely. “We are looking for a balance between the positive and negative aspects of mining”, she says.

Environmental education must move away from neutrality, in the opinion of Angélica Cosenza, who coordinates the Group of Studies and Research in Environmental Education at the UFJF (Federal University of Juiz de Fora).

For the researcher, it is necessary for education to prepare the community to act against the processes of environmental destruction, injustice and racism – a concept used to explain that certain groups are more vulnerable to the effects of the destruction of nature.

“We must question, reflect and lead students to argue about the reality in which they live, proposing new paths”, says Márcia Barbosa, participant of the course that teaches geography in the public network in Raul Soares (MG).

Márcia’s work group develops activities related to the Rio Doce Basin, considering the role of the tributaries in the water quality in the basin.

“We researched the rivers in our city that flow into the Rio Doce; we produced a model of the hydrographic basin and we understood that taking care of the water in our municipality is also fighting for the revitalization of the basin”, says Lindsey Tavares, 13, a student in the 8th year at the Benedito Valadares State School.

Independence of the project depends on a critical reading of reality

The financing of the Escola do Rio Doce Extension Program by the foundation of the mining companies is a risk to their autonomy, says Thiago Alves, coordinator of the MAB (Movement of People Affected by Dams) in Minas Gerais.

“The criminal is not removed from the victim. The companies that committed the crime control the reparation money, control the resources and even control the Renova Foundation”, he says.

In Alves’ opinion, environmental education projects should be debated in collective spaces used by the affected people, such as social movements and affected committees, to avoid the reproduction of companies’ narratives.

“It is necessary to guarantee independent tools that bring to schools a critical reading of reality, of the performance of companies and of crime”, he says.

Angélica, from UFJF, corroborates this view. The researcher says that the speeches produced by the mining companies reinforce the idea of ​​the activity as a carrier of progress and development, in addition to criminalizing resistance movements. For her, environmental struggles are the only tool capable of confronting the power of companies and conquering rights.

Regarding the Escola do Rio Doce Program, Maria Isabel, from UFMG, states that the Renova Foundation does not interfere with the course content and that training is a right of reparation for the affected community.

Questioned about the relationship with the mining companies Samarco, Vale and BHP, the Renova Foundation informed that it is a private, non-profit entity, established through a Term of Transaction and Adjustment of Conduct signed between Samarco, its shareholders Vale and BHP, public authorities, municipalities, foundations and institutes.

The Foundation states that it has the exclusive objective of managing and executing the programs and actions to repair and compensate for the damage caused by the rupture of the Fundão dam. Regarding the Escola do Rio Doce Program, Renova informs that it is responsible for financing and signed agreements with UFMG and UFOP so that educational institutions carry out the project in Minas Gerais.

The Secretary of Education of Minas Gerais informed, through a note, that the pedagogical political projects must offer a formative process in environmental education directed to the relationship between mining and society. In addition, he stated that the Escola do Rio Doce Program is linked to the extra-class workload of teachers.