Created with the objective of contributing to the improvement of the quality of life in Barcarena, the Trilhando Caminhos program's strategy is to use sports, cultural and leisure activities as drivers for the integral formation, citizenship practice and community coexistence of children and adolescents with ages between 6 and 17 years. The initiative is promoted by Hydro Alunorte and carried out by the social organization De Peito Aberto. 

As a socio-educational and social inclusion tool, the Program offers classes in soccer, capoeira, theater, ballet, judo and running. “In addition to supporting these activities, we offer psychosocial care for students, families and communities, whether they are leaders or not, as long as they are related to the project”, highlights Rachel Starling, general manager of partnerships for Territorial Development. 

Since 2020, around 600 people have benefited from the program, 200 of which through psychosocial assistance, totaling 2,700 social assistance, including dance, football, capoeira, theater and social support for students, which includes actions promoted to listen and give attention to emotional problems or mental suffering. “The project has this ability to give protagonism to the participants, to make them seen, heard and to feel like citizens, with rights to have their childhood and adolescence respected. With the assistance of social technicians, it is possible to look at these young people with a little more care, realizing their reality and their social dynamics”, says Rachel.

The program has 10 activity centers in operation, eight of them in partnership with communities such as Águas Verdes, Bom Futuro, Burajuba, Fazendinha/Caripi, Vila do Conde, Vila Nova, Murucupi, and Renascer com Cristo, in addition to offering spaces in Vila dos Cabanos and Cabana Clube. Currently, the project has 366 enrolled and active students. This year, 519 social services have already been carried out. 

For this year, follow-up meetings with families and community leaders are also planned, resumption of 100% face-to-face classes in all cores, organization of integration events together with volunteering and/or festivities of the communities themselves, summer camp, socio-educational actions and the opening of new places for judo, dance and running classes. These classes should benefit about 100 children and young people.

One of these young people is Johnata William, 19 years old. In 2019, he joined the project and remained until 2021, when he turned 17. Johnata says that his life has changed with the help of the project and he has improved the practice of football with the experiences he has had. He is currently structuring a football club in Barcarena to help children and teenagers follow this dream. “I needed this in life, the program showed me the path to happiness and I was able to follow firm and strong in what I believed in and realized the importance of continuing my studies. Today, I am not a great football player as I wanted, but I have become a better person and a small entrepreneur, with the opportunity to pass on my little life experience to other young people and encourage them to never give up on their dreams and always focus on studies”, concludes Johnata proudly.

A team made up of 10 professionals who are residents of the region is dedicated to the project. Among them is the psychologist Michele Moura, a social technician who provides socio-emotional care and promotes socio-educational actions. “Having the opportunity to help change the lives of socially vulnerable children and adolescents was what motivated me to accept this challenge”, Michele emphasizes.

Among these activities is the assessment of the socioeconomic profile of the beneficiaries, presentation of the level of vulnerability, reception, monitoring, referral to a network of partnerships, according to demand, and development of socio-educational actions. “I come from a very humble family in the interior of Pará. I was the first person in my family to enter a university, I studied all my life in public school and graduated from a public university, I was successful in the job market, which few can and I want to help these young people to get their place in the market like this like it happened to me”, he concludes.