Fazer Acontecer Institute (IFA) special bulletin, NGO that works with sport under an educational perspective in low income communities in Bahia since 2004. It serves annually around 360 teenagers in projects in the communities of Saramandaia, Calabar and Recanto Feliz in the city of Salvador-BA . For further information, access: www.fazeracontecer.org.br or www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwp40HG6HiY
IFA starts 2009 with novelties
 
The students of the Fazer Acontecer Institute have returned to the sport and citizenship classes since April. All partnerships have been renewed, with the following companies: Fluxo Integrated Solutions, Worktime Corporate Consulting, Empower, Global Fund for Children and Squadrilar.

The project in Bairro da Paz was interrupted due to problems in the transportation to the courts where the classes were managed. To replace them, new courses were opened in the neighborhood of Saramandaia, through a new partnership with ITES and UFBA. The number of children served by IFA increased from 240 to 360 students after the opening of new courses in the municipality of Valente and other two in Riachão do Jacuípe. The institute's staff also changed: two new interns were hired for citizenship classes and, in addition, new sport teachers for the countryside's groups.
IFA joins ISCA and GFC's meetings
 
In March, IFA's coordinator, Renato Paes de Andrade, joined a meeting promoted by SESC (Commerce Social Service), with the participation of ISCA (International Sport and Culture Association), in the city of Bertioga , where actions for the promotion of sport for all in Brazil were discussed. ISCA is a Danish organization whose “philosophy is that sport is not just about competition and exercise, but also involves having a good time and making friends”. That association believes that “activities such as festivals, exchanges and sports tournaments are an unrivalled means of creating international understanding, and that everyone should be given the chance to participate”. To share that proposal, IFA's goal is to become an ISCA's associate and collaborate to spread sport for all in Brazil .
At that same month, Renato also participated in a meeting organized by GFC (Global Fund for Children) in Rio de Janeiro, to which all institute's partners in Brazil were invited. That meeting allowed for discussing on how to deal the groups' experience in the everyday life of their organizations.
 
New groups in Saramandaia

The citizen sport comes to the community of Saramandaia. Since the beginning of April, teacher Jair delivers soccer classes and teaches 90 students on participation-sport concepts, at the neighborhood's public space. The community's children and teenagers will also be given citizenship classes, due to begin in July.

The execution of the activities in Saramandaia was possible thanks to the union of IFA with ECOSAMPER, a local development project based within the Supportive Economy principles, comprised by a network of initiatives such as the Communitary Garden, the Communitary Bank, Infocentro and other neighborhood association in that community. ECOSAMPER is supported by ITES, UFBA's Supportive Economy Technologic Incubator. Those soccer and education for citizenship groups are sponsored by Global Fund for Children, an American organization that has been supporting IFA since 2006.

 
Citizen Sport in Bahia countryside
 
The classes for IFA's new students in Bahia countryside are going all out. 120 children and teenagers from the municipalities of Valente and Riachão do Jacuípe are attending sport and citizenship classes thanks to IFA's initiative in conjunction with partner companies such as Fluxo Integrated Solutions, Worktime Corporate Consulting and the municipalities' governments.

Those two cities are among the winners of the UNICEF's Municipal Seal of Approval Program and were awarded with a sport training program for 40 of their physical education teachers. That course comprised 30 hours of theoretical and practical training, delivered by a trained instructor from IFA. The sport-participation-education perspective was the core subject of the classes delivered, gathering children of diverse ages, social classes and genders in a same group, with no distinctions, driving the psychosocial development, respect, cooperation and citizenship as values.
After being awarded with the UNICEF's Municipal Seal of Approval Program, the government of the city of Valente enabled the organization of a Sport Department and a Sport Counsel for the municipality. Before the creation of those bodies, physical education was neglected in favor of other disciplines. Today, there is already a plan for physical education teachers, and the elementary school students were granted such discipline.

Maura Miranda, director of the Elementary Education Projects and Programs Department of the municipality of Valente , acknowledges that the coming of the Institute has promoted a change in the municipality's sport culture. “The training program carried out by the NGO has changed dramatically the conception of sport before the physical education teachers. It has brought the notion of sport as social interaction, as leisure, among other values”

Pedro Paulo Santos, Seal's representative in Riachão do Jacuípe, acknowledges the importance of the training for the municipality's sport policy: “the training program in education-sport succeeded enormously. Programs such as the one IFA deployed in Riachão are essential for the development of our city and people. Finally, now our teachers know how to work sports with children and teenagers”, celebrates Pedro.
 
American students will deliver classes to IFA's pupils
 
Fazer Acontecer Institute will receive volunteers from the United States for the execution of teaching activities for the Institute's students. The volunteers are American students from several fields and will be assigned as IFA's interns in order to deliver classes to the students served by IFA. This action was enabled by the partnership between IFA and Pro World, an American NGO that fosters and supports the exchange of students in order to disseminate knowledge all over the world. For each intern, the Institute receives a budget that may be allocated to the purchase of supplies, travels or
any kind of support required by the project execution.

Pro World is a NGO to allow for the exchange of experiences and knowledge through a volunteering program, which go to other country to disseminate knowledge. The NGO is staffed in Peru , Belize , Mexico , Thailand and Brazil .