With more than 30 years of experience, O Pequeno Nazareno (OPN) has transformed the lives of hundreds of young people through educational programs, family support, vocational training, and street outreach. In 2015 OPN helped create RIDIAC — the Red Internacional por la Defensa de la Infancia y Adolescencia en Situación de Calle - an international alliance spanning 12 Latin American countries and encompassing over 700 partner organizations, focused on defending the rights and improving the conditions of street‑involved children and youth. In October 2024, the organisation officially launched its StreetSmart Wheels partnereship with StreetSmart, featuring a mobile school with over 270 educational panels translated into Portuguese and ready to be deployed in highly vulnerable areas such as Alto das Dunas and Praça do Ferreira.

In these communities — where many families face precarious living conditions and the presence of drug trafficking adds to the daily challenges faced by children and adolescents — the mobile school will serve as a vital tool for creating safe, engaging spaces for play and learning. With it, OPN’s street educators will bring knowledge, creativity, and meaningful dialogue to some of the city’s most underserved and hard-to-reach areas.

During an engaging 10-day implementation training, our trainers Junieth Machado and Julia Pimenta worked closely with the OPN team as they learned to operate the Mobile School, explore its educational panels, and prepare to bring it into some of the most challenging environments. By the end of the training week, the educators had become experts in the methodology, equipped with everything they need to effectively conduct sessions on the streets of Fortaleza. In the coming months, the OPN team will use the mobile school in a structured way, conducting outreach sessions multiple times a week to engage with vulnerable children across Fortaleza.

We’re excited to launch this new collaboration and look forward to witnessing the impact of the very first StreetSmart Wheels partnership on Brazilian soil. Our heartfelt thanks go to the Forvia Foundation for their generous support in making this project possible — and for helping us expand the reach of our mobile schools around the world.

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This project was realised with the support of the Forvia Foundation.