“The Family House teaches for life. I began to see agriculture and my role as the protagonist of my story with different eyes.” With a firm speech and a look full of hope, Alisson dos Santos Costa, 18, from Bom Jesus community in Teolândia, Bahia, knows that his and his family’s life began to be transformed after joining the Rural Family House of President Tancredo Neves (CFR-PTN in Portuguese). The educational institution, supported by the Odebrecht Foundation through the PDCIS Program, enables favorable access conditions to an education geared to the reality of the countryside, through the Course of Technical Professional Education in Agricultural Integrated to Secondary Education.

To join the institution in 2014, Alisson was encouraged by friends who had already graduated. “They acted as a mirror, enabling me to try to change my reality as well, through study and opportunities,” he said. After going through all the stages of the selection process, the teenager began his first year of formation. “It has been challenging since the beginning, when we were taught to do our Action Plan and asked what was the expected production of my Plantain project. And it was only 1,000 kilos, “he says. With the techniques he learned and new ways of cultivation, Alisson exceeded all expectations, reaching 6,000 kg in his first harvest. The production is part of the practical exercise of the Future Young Rural Entrepreneurs Formation Project, supported by the Odebrecht Foundation’s Tribute to the Future Program.

At home, Alisson came to share the acquired knowledge and help to change his family’s subsistence situation, by encouraging them to become members of the Presidente Tancredo Neves Rural Producers’ Cooperative (Coopatan in Portuguese), which is also part of the PDCIS Program. In three years, they have gone from 20 to 30 hectares of land to plant. “With a better financial income, we bought a car, which helps us deliver the banana production, and installed an irrigation system,” said Alisson. In the community, the young man is also changing other lives with his protagonism. Through the rural seminars and visits to other properties, he works to share all his knowledge with his neighbors, all rural producers. Alisson and his family have become references. “I am always present in the farmers’s association in my community,” he adds proudly.

Addition to the technical knowledge, the youth tells us that the teachings of the Odebrecht Entrepreneurial Technology, the entrepreneurial culture disseminated by the Odebrecht Foundation to the institutions it supports, are carried to his daily activities in the countryside and to his personal life as well. “I learned that we need to cultivate the Spirit to Service and be good to people. Education is the basis of all this, “he says. In 2016, Alisson will complete his formation at the CFR-PTN and his plans for the future are at the tip off his tongue: “Continue to increase my productive areas, not stop studying and stay in the countryside, which is my place.”