Creating Habitats Project for Socio-Environmental Education at the Julita Foundation, Zona Sul, São Paulo

Abstract

We are living in a planetary crisis, where it is urgent and necessary to prioritize environmental issues in our decision-making processes. In the Jardim São Luís neighborhood, located in the periphery of the southern zone of São Paulo, this situation is even more drastic due to the scarcity of green and leisure spaces. How can we provide the population with an encounter with nature, create this affective relationship, and bring a critical, social perspective? This is the goal of the “Creating Habitats” project, in which we conduct environmental education activities with children and young people aged 1 to 17, promoting greater contact with nature through the four elements and permaculture techniques needed to modify the local reality. Additionally, to ensure the work is comprehensive and interdisciplinary, we conducted periodic training sessions with the educators of these spaces. In two years, we carried out 2,850 environmental education activities with children and young people aged 1 to 17, and we developed 16 continuous training sessions with the educators. This approach enables the consideration of environmental education as an everyday, transversal practice beyond the activity itself, extending beyond the walls of the Julita Foundation.

Keywords: Environmental education; permaculture; sustainability; interdisciplinarity.