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THE ROLE OF A POPULAR EDUCATION PROJECT IN MOBILIZING A
RURAL COMMUNITY: A CASE STUDY OF THE RUBBER TAPPERS OF ACRE,
BRAZIL
By
CONSTANCE ELAINE CAMPBELL
A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
1990
This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Chico Mendes,
former President of the Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Rurais of
Xapuri, who was killed on December 22, 1988 for defending the
Amazon rainforests and the people who live in them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am very grateful to my advisory committee, Drs.
Marianne Schmink, Kent Redford and Linda Miller, for their
critical support throughout all stages of my coursework and
field research. Special thanks are due to Dr. Schmink for
her advice and friendship. The field research for this thesis
was funded by grants from the Amazon Research and Training
Program and the Vining Davis Field Research Grant Program,
both of the Center for Latin American Studies at the
University of Florida.
I also wish to thank my family for their support,
especially my mother, Polly Harris, who provided much-needed
encouragement and humor. Many friends in Gainesville also
deserve my sincere thanks for their companionship and warm
support, especially Pennie Magee, Peggy Lovell, Gay Biery-
Hamilton, Karen Kainer, Jon Dain, Richard Piland and Avecita
Chichon. The Disciples-Presbyterian Student Center provided
friendship and a supportive community for which I am sincerely
thankful.
iii
In Brazil, many people in Xapuri, Rio Branco and the
serincal were very helpful during my field work. I especially
wish to thank my colleagues at the Federal University of Acre
for their hospitality and support. Friends at the Centro dos
Trabalhadores da Amaz6nia and the Sindicato dos Trabalhadores
Rurais were extremely helpful and generous. Their support was
invaluable and I am grateful for their friendship. Lastly,
I wish to thank the serinaueiros who graciously allowed me to
share their homes and their lives. Their dedication and
enthusiasm for their community was inspiring and I thank them
for sharing that with me.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
DEDICATION. . . ...... ... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. . . . ....... iii
LIST OF ACRONYMS. . . . . .. vii
ABSTRACT . ... . . . X
CHAPTERS
I INTRODUCTION. . . .... ... 1
Objective of the Study .. . 1
A Look at the Rubber Tappers and Socio-Economic
Changes in the State of Acre. . . 9
Education in the Seringal . ... 15
Organization of the Study . ... 19
Notes . ... . . .. 28
II THE PROJETO SERINGUEIRO EDUCATION PROJECT 30
History of the Projeto Seringueiro. ... 30
The Theoretical Basis of Popular Education
and the Paulo Freire Methodology. . .. 36
The Projeto Seringueiro Today ... ... 49
The Future for the Projeto Seringueiro. 67
Notes . . . . 72
III THE IMPACT OF THE PROJETO SERINGUEIRO SCHOOLS
ON LIFE IN THE SERINGAL . . ... 73
Introduction . . . . 73
Rural to Urban Migration. ... . 75
Self-Reported Literacy Skills . 80
Political Participation . ... .. 84
Use of Natural Resources: Techniques in
Cutting Rubber and Hunting. . ... 88
Marketing Tactics . . . 93
Conclusions ...... . . 95
Notes . . . . 96
IV THE IMPACT OF THE PROJETO SERINGUEIRO SCHOOLS
AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL. . . ... 97
General Effects of the Projeto Seringueiro. 98
A Comparison of two Extractive Reserves:
Differences in Politicization and Mobilization
between Sao Luis do Remanso and Cachoeira 106
Conclusions . . . . 114
Notes . . . . 115
V EPILOG. . . . . 116
Growth of the Projeto Seringueiro . 116
STR-Xapuri: The Death of Chico Mendes . 119
The Projeto Seringueiro's Role. . 120
Notes . . . .... 122
GLOSSARY . . . . ... . 123
LIST OF REFERENCES. . . . . 126
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH . . . ... .132
LIST OF ACRONYMS
CEB Comunidade Eclesial de Base
Ecclesiastical Base Community
CEDI Centro Ecumdnico de Documentaqgo e Informagdo
Ecumencial Center for Documentation and
Information
CEDOP-AM Centro de Documentagio e Pesquisa da Amaz6nia
Center for Amazon Documentation and Research
CEE Conselho Estadual de Educagdo
State Education Council
CESI Coordenadoria Ecumenica de Servigos
Ecumenical Service Coordinator
CNS Conselho Nacional dos Seringueiros
National Council of Rubber Tappers
CONTAG Confederacio Nacional dos Trabalhadores da
Agriculture
National Confederation of Agricultural Workers
CPI Comissao Pro-Indio
Pro-Indian Commission
CTA Centro dos Trabalhadores da Amaz6nia
Amazon Workers' Center
DAE Departamento de AlimentacAo Escolar
Department of Educational Food Services
FAE Fundag~o de Assistencia Estudantil
Student Assistance Foundation
vii
FUNTAC Fundagdo de Tecnologia do Estado do Acre
Technological Foundation of the State of Acre
IBDF Instituto Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento Florestal
Brazilian Institute of Forestry Development
IBGE Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics
IEA Instituto de Estudos Amaz6nicos
Institute for Amazonian Studies
IMAC Instituto de Meio Ambiente do Acre
Environmental Institute of Acre
INCRA Instituto Nacional de Colonizagao e Reforma
Agraria
National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian
Reform
INPA Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Amaz6nicas
National Institute for Amazon Research
MIRAD Ministerio da Reforma e Desenvolvimento Agrario
Minstry of Agrarian Reform and Development
NGO non-governmental organization
PMACI Projeto de Protegio do Meio Ambiente e das
Comunidades Indigenas
Project to Protect the Environment and Indigenous
Communities
PNRA Piano Nacional de Reforma Agraria
National Plan of Agrarian Reform
PS Projeto Seringueiro
Project Rubber Tapper
PT Partido dos Trabalhadores
Workers' Party
SEC Secretaria de Educagdo e Cultura
Secretary of Education and Culture
SEPLAN Secretaria de Planejamento e Coordenagao da
Presidencia da Republica
Secretary of Planning and Coordination of the
President of the Republic
STR Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Rurais
Union of Rural Workers
viii
SUCAM Superintendencia de Combate a Malaria
Superintendent for Malaria Control
SUDHEVEA Superintendengia para o Desenvolvimento da Hevea
Superintendent for the Development of Rubber
UDR Uniao Democratica Rural
Rural Democratic Union
UFAC Universidade Federal do Acre
Federal University of Acre
Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School
of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
THE ROLE OF A POPULAR EDUCATION PROJECT IN MOBILIZING A
RURAL COMMUNITY: A CASE STUDY OF THE RUBBER TAPPERS OF ACRE,
BRAZIL
By
Constance Elaine Campbell
May, 1990
Chairperson: Dr. Marianne Schmink
Major Department: Latin American Studies
This study compares four communities of extractive
producers or rubber tappers in the the state of Acre in the
Brazilian Amazon to determine the impact of a popular
education project on individuals' lives and on community
mobilization efforts. Each of these four areas has various
access to educational facilities, different experiences in
unionization and community mobilization, and various forms of
land tenure.
Through interviews with families in these four areas,
measurements were made of five variables dependent upon the
presence and type of school in the community. Measurements
indicate that those families with a history of participation
in the popular education project, or those living in the
community where the project is operating, participate more
actively in the union and in local political elections,
receive higher prices for their cash crop (rubber), have fewer
family members residing in the urban centers to study and are
more proficient in literacy and numeracy skills than rubber
tappers in the other three communities. Average prices
received for rubber and the political participation levels of
those families studying at a rural government-sponsored school
(or living in the area served by this school) are no higher
than those of the rubber tappers who have no access to any
education whatsoever.
This study indicates that the popular education project,
Projeto Seringueiro (Project Rubber Tapper), is a key
component in the rubber tappers' efforts to improve the
quality of their lives and defend the rainforest in which they
live. The Projeto provides both the environment and the
practical skills for the community to mobilize for economic,
social and political changes even in the face of violent
opposition. During the course of this study and in large part
due to the impact of the Projeto Seringueiro education
project, the rubber tappers achieved the establishment of
extractive reserves, a new type of agrarian reform which
guarantees extractive rights to rubber tappers and protects
the rainforest from clearing.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Objective of the Study
In this study, I assessed how the popular education
project of the rubber tappers of Acre, Brazil is able to
sustain and strengthen the rubber tappers' community, thereby
empowering that community to affect social changes to preserve
the forest and its livelihood. The people of this community
have been mobilizing since the early 1970s to improve their
lives and their ability to protect the rainforest in which
they live. These extractive producers live in an area of the
Brazilian Amazon where conservation and development interests
are coming into increasing conflict. Social changes in this
state in the western Amazon have been rapid and violent. As
part of these changes, education in the rubber tapping areas
of the rainforest has been a primary component of the rubber
tappers' movement to unionize and protect the forest. This
thesis examines the impact of education on life in the
rainforest by comparing communities with access to different
forms of education.
2
The rubber tappers' project of popular education, the
Projeto Seringueiro (PS) or Project Rubber Tapper, is one
facet of their efforts to mobilize their community in defense
of their land and way of life. The schools, based on the
popular education methodology of Paulo Freire, not only
provide the tappers (serinqueiros) with the opportunity to
gain literacy and numeracy skills, but also stimulate critical
individual and community reflection on the serinqueiros' way
of life and creative action to improve their lives. It is
this reflection and participation that makes the Projeto
Seringueiro a highlight of the community's efforts.
From one-room schoolhouses in the rain forest of Acre,
the success of this education project has had a significant
impact on the serinqueiros and their community's mobilization
to improve the quality of their lives and defend the rain
forest. The rubber tappers who created this education project
as part of their unionization movement have achieved economic,
political and social victories in large part due to their
empowerment as individuals and as a community through these
schools. These victories include rural health posts, a
women's group and a marketing cooperative, as well as the
election of two PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores) candidates to
the local town council in Xapuri. Their most significant
victory is achievement of the keystone of the community's
conservation goals, that of establishing extractive reserves
or federally protected areas of the forest where the
3
serinqueiros can live without fear of expulsion by land
speculators.
However, this empowerment has also brought severe defeats
and losses of human life as those opposed to the movement
responded violently to its lay-members and leaders alike. In
July of 1980 Wilson Pinheiro de Souza, the President of the
Brasil4ia Rural Workers' Union, was shot and killed in the
Union office (Grzybowski 1989; Ferreira da Silva 1982). Eight
years later almost to the day, the violence continued unabated
as a 24 year old rural worker, Ivair Higino, who served as a
monitor in an ecclesiastical base community of the Catholic
Church, as a delegate for the Union and as a candidate for
town council on the PT ticket, was ambushed and shot to death
("Sindicalista chacinado de madrugada em Xapuri" June 19,
1988). Ivair's killers are allegedly members of the UDR
(Unido Democrdtica Rural), a union of cattle ranchers and
large landowners ibidd).
On December 22, 1988, Chico Mendes was shot and killed
at his home in Xapuri, allegedly by a member and a hired
gunman of the same ranching family that killed Ivair ("Um tiro
no peito liquid o lider Chico Mendes" 12/23/1988; "Brazilian
who Fought to Protect the Amazon is Killed" 12/24/1988;
"Leading Brazilian Ecologist Murdered at Home" 12/24/1988).
Chico was the President of the Union of Rural Workers as well
as a national and international spokesperson for the rubber
tappers' movement. He was a union organizer and an ecologist
4
who received international conservation awards from the United
Nations and met with representatives of the Inter-American
Development Bank through his efforts to defend the rainforest
from clearing and to better the serinqueiros' lives ("ONU
condecora seringueiro da Amaz6nia por defesa ecol6gica" July
6, 1987). Chico stated that it was after many years of
mobilizing the rubber tappers that he heard himself referred
to as an ecologist. At the time he did not even know exactly
what an ecologist was'. Without realizing in the early 1970s
that his mobilization efforts would later be recognized by
international conservationists, Chico had begun organizing the
serinqueiros to defend the rainforest from clearing, a task
which later cost him his life.
Wilson Pinheiro, Ivair Higino and Chico Mendes, along
with many others, have been killed in Acre as a result of the
conflict for land between land speculators coming into Acre
and caboclos, or Amazonian peasants, many of whom have lived
in the same tract of forest for generations. This conflict
resulted from the federal government's policy of encouraging
private capital in the Amazon (through tax exemptions and
fiscal incentives) while discouraging political activity by
the rural workers (Martins 1984). Violence against rural
union leaders, priests and others working to promote the
rights of rural workers intensified starting with the federal
government's POLAMAZONIA program in the mid-1970s and still
5
continues today by those opposed to President Sarney's PNRA
or National Plan for Agrarian Reform of 1985 (Bakx 1987a).
These conflicts will surely increase as the paving of
highway BR-364 which runs from Porto Velho (the capital of
the neighboring state of Rond6nia) to Rio Branco, the capital
of Acre, is completed. ("BID e UniAo garantem o asfaltamento
da BR-364" July 1, 1988). All weather access on this road
will bring greater numbers of land speculators, cattle
ranchers and migrant farmers into the state. With BR-364
paved through Rond6nia and into Acre, farmers forced out of
Brazil's central-south region due to the mechanization of
labor-intensive crops and the expansion of soybeans and wheat,
will migrate into Acre, bringing with them a dramatic rise in
forest clearing (Fearnside 1984).
Plans by the federal and state governments to continue
paving BR-364 and BR-317 to Acre's Peruvian and Bolivian
borders, respectively, will certainly put greater pressure on
Acre's forests. (Both the World Bank and the Inter-American
Development Bank have refused to pay for the paving of BR-
364 to Peru [The Economist 1989]). Accessibility to Pacific
trade routes will increase the demand for timber, beef and
products such as soybeans shipped up from southern Brazil.
Acre's Secretariat for Industry and Commerce is actively
promoting the state's capacity to produce rubber, Brazil nuts,
dairy products, timber and furniture (Secretaria de Inddstria
e Comercio n.d.). In anticipation of growing markets for
6
beef, Acre is constructing refrigeration facilities in Rio
Branco to process beef destined for the European Common Market
ibidd). With these increases in interstate and international
commerce, Acre will soon experience even more rapid economic
and social change than at present.
In light of these changes, the rubber tappers hope that
they will be able to preserve the rain forest on which they
depend for their livelihood. The serinqueiros in the
municipalities of Xapuri and Brasildia in southeastern Acre
have been mobilizing their communities for over a decade to
defend their right to the land on which they live. They plan
to expand their unionization and mobilization efforts in other
parts of Acre and in Rond6nia. Their strategy includes
pressing for more extractive reserves, as well as for research
to improve their production system. The schools of the
Projeto Seringueiro are one of the key elements needed to
successfully mobilize communities to reach these goals.
The extractive reserves are federally owned and protected
areas of rain forest in which the serinaueiros can continue
to live and work. The idea for extractive reserves was first
officially promoted in 1985 at the first meeting of the
Conselho Nacional dos Seringueiros (CNS) or the National
Rubber Tappers' Council in Brasilia (Bakx 1987a, 1987b; CNS
1985; Lamb 1986). These reserves, designed along the lines
of indigenous reserves, provide an alternative to government-
sponsored colonization projects. The reserves were to be
7
created in areas where rubber tappers were currently living
(CNS 1985; STR-Xapuri/CUT/CNS 1989).
After two years of intensive lobbying by the rubber
tappers who were supported by national and international
conservation groups, the President of the National Institute
for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA) authorized the
creation of extractive reserves for "economically viable and
ecologically sustainable activities by the populations
occupying areas with abundant extractive products" on July
31, 1987 (INCRA 1987; translation mine). Residents of these
areas gain extractive rights by signing a 20-year renewable
contract with INCRA which stipulates that the contract may be
passed on to family members but that the land itself may not
be otherwise transferred without notifying INCRA ibidd). The
contract also states that the area be used for extractive
purposes and implicitly regulates the amount of forest that
can be cleared annually ibidd), thereby reducing the threat
of encroachment into the forest by land speculators or cattle
ranchers.
By September of 1988 the serinqueiros had succeeded in
having four areas designated as reserves in Acre totalling
210,973 hectares and including at least 618 families (IEA
1988). While the tappers see this as a good start, the CNS
and the union hope to have additional extractive reserves
created in Acre and other Amazonian states. At their
municipal meeting in August of 1988, members of the Union of
8
Rural Workers (STR-Xapuri) declared that they want to have a
sufficient number of such reserves to accommodate the whole
population of rubber tappers presently residing in Acre's
forests. According to 1980 census figures, this entails a
population of 23,813 persons (not including persons under 10
years of age) who indicated that the extraction of rubber was
their main occupation (IBGE 1980a). These people constitute
26% of the state's 1980 economically active population ibidd),
which produced 54% of Brazil's coagulated Hevea latex (IBGE
1980b). As the total size of the state of Acre is 152,589 km2
(IBGE 1981), the four areas designated as reserves constitute
only 1.4% of the state. The families served by these reserves
constitute roughly 10% of the 1980 population engaged in
extractive activities (using an average of four economically
active persons per household). The designation of these four
reserves was due to the persistent efforts of the rubber
tappers' union and the CNS which were strengthened by support
from national and international conservation interests. All
of these groups will have to intensify their efforts if in
fact they intend to establish reserves large enough in number
and size to serve Acre's population of rubber tappers.
Towards this end, the CNS and STR are striving to
mobilize serinqueiros in other parts of Acre and to strengthen
the existing union in Xapuri and Brasildia. A key aspect of
such mobilization efforts is the schools of the Projeto
Seringueiro. The Projeto is a community-initiated and
9
sustained literacy and numeracy project which is now in its
seventh year and serves 600 students. In order to assess the
role of this education project in mobilizing the rubber
tappers, I spent four months in Acre during the summer of
1988. I worked closely with the serinqueiros in Xapuri,
exploring the history of the union and the education project.
I compared various communities with access to Projeto schools
and state-sponsored rural schools. By interviewing families,
teachers and community leaders, attending community meetings
and traveling to different schools and the serincueiros' homes
in the rain forest, I studied the impact of this popular
education project on life in the rain forest and on the
community as a whole.
A Look at the Rubber Tappers and Socio-Economic Changes in
the State of Acre
In order to better understand the daily reality of the
rubber tappers' lives and the socio-political environment in
which they operate, I present here a synopsis of the history,
unionization and production system of the Acrean rubber
tappers as well as a brief look at the federal government's
Amazon policy.
The rubber tappers live in the forest from which they
extract the latex from wild rubber trees (Hevea spp.) and
gather Brazil nuts (Bertholettia excelsa). Within the forest,
the location and density of the 500-600 rubber trees tapped
by each family dictate the site of the family's home or
colocacao. Tappers cut between 3-7 looping trails or estradas
10
in the forest starting and ending at their home. The
serinqueiro walks the trails to get to the rubber trees and
makes a small incision (corte) in the bark of the tree to
extract the latex. The serinqueiro affixes a collecting cup
(tigela) or a Brazil nut husk to the tree to hold the dripping
latex. Collection of the latex requires another round trip
on the trail. Each round trip takes from 2-4 hours.
After processing the latex, the tappers sell the
resulting rubber and the Brazil nuts for cash with which they
purchase necessary dry goods. In addition to hunting and
fishing, each family has a small agricultural plot (rocado)
for cultivation of subsistence crops, obviating the need to
purchase many foodstuffs. Since only a small part of the
forest is cleared for agriculture and the rubber trees can be
tapped throughout their adult life, the serinaueiros can live
in and work the same tract of land for many generations.
It was in part due to the fabled richness of Acre's
forests that the ancestors of many of the state's current
rubber tappers migrated to the area. Understanding the
history of the serinqueiros of Acre is essential to realizing
the significance of their mobilization. I present here a very
brief synopsis of the extractive economy of rubber in Acre and
the social relations in which the serinqueiros have been
involved. [Barbara Weinstein, Warren Dean and Pedro
Martinello provide comprehensive studies of the migration of
workers to the rubber estates of Acre during the boom of 1850-
11
1912 and again in World War II (see Dean 1987, Martinello
1988, and Weinstein 1983).]
The economy and social relations surrounding the
extraction of latex in the Amazon has traditionally involved
a system of debt-peonage or aviamento. Aviamento was a
vertical line of credit which extended from the serinqueiro
in the forest through a number of intermediaries to the export
houses in Belem and Manaus and from there on to international
sources of capital (Coelho 1982; Dean 1987; Weinstein 1983).
Within the aviamento system, a patron (or seringalista) would
provide a serincueiro with foodstuffs and supplies on credit.
The serinqueiro would then be obliged to sell his harvest of
rubber to the patron who, through price manipulation, would
keep the serinqueiro "captive" by insuring that the rubber
tapper was always in debt. Due to the serinqueiro's isolation
in the forest, illiteracy and his initial debt which kept
growing, he was literally under the control of the patron and
had little or no recourse of escaping the aviamento system
(see Coelho 1982 and Weinstein 1983 for a more thorough
discussion of aviamento).
After 1964, with changes in federal policy and economic
objectives, the seringalistas no longer had easy access to
credit from the banks to finance their aviamento relations
and subsequently lost "control" over the serinqueiros (Duarte
1987). This coincided with falling rubber prices which,
combined with a lack of credit, forced many of the rubber
12
barons to abandon their serinqais (the rubber tapping areas
they controlled), leaving rubber tappers under the control of
local traders or marreteiros.
Changes in federal policy at this time encouraged
investment in large scale agricultural enterprises in the
Amazon (mostly in the form of cattle ranches) (Duarte 1987;
Pompermayer 1984) which resulted in large scale clearing of
the forest and expulsion of the small-scale farmers and
serincueiros who had been working the land.
In Acre, the aviamento system began deteriorating in the
micro-region of the Purus river which is the southeast portion
of the state (Bakx 1987a). As the construction of roads
allowed access to markets previously denied to the tappers,
the serinqueiros in this area slowly began gaining
independence from their former patrons (Bakx 1987a). By the
time cattle ranchers from southern Brazil came into Acre in
the early 1970's at the invitation of then state Governor
Wanderlei Dantas, tappers in southeastern Acre were autonomous
ibidd) and in a position to organize, at least in a loose
fashion, against the clearing of their lands.
The serinqueiros' movement received support from the
Catholic church's recognition of the tappers' struggle and
assistance from CONTAG (the Brazilian Confederation of
Agricultural Workers) ibidd). In 1975, a municipal branch of
the Union of Rural Workers or Sindicato dos Trabalhadores
Rurais (STR) was formed in Brasildia (Bakx 1987b). The
13
serinqueiros themselves became the leaders in the STR,
defending workers' rights and mobilizing the membership for
political and social change, including the defense of the rain
forest on which their livelihoods depended.
The empate or stand-off was one of the first mobilization
efforts of the 1970's (Bakx 1987). At these non-violent
demonstrations, the goal is to stop forest clearing and
evictions of serincueiros by cattle ranchers seeking to claim
land. Unarmed tappers, oftentimes with their wives and
children, confront the ranchers' workers who are operating
chainsaws and bulldozers (Schwartzman 1987). The tappers
appeal to the class solidarity of the laborers ibidd) and
their common dependence on the preservation of the forest.
Along with defending the forest through the empates, the
rubber tappers also wanted to improve the quality of their
lives by getting better prices for their rubber and Brazil
nuts and by learning to read and write. With help from non-
governmental organizations and the STR, the serincueiros built
schools and health posts in the rain forest and established
cooperatives.
After ten years of local unionization, rubber tappers
from four states met in Brasilia in 1985 at the first National
Meeting of Amazonian Rubber Tappers at which time they created
the National Rubber Tapper's Council (CNS). The CNS proposed
the appropriation of native rubber tapping areas for the
establishment of extractive reserves to be set up where rubber
14
tappers and other rural workers were already living and to
guarantee usufruct rights to these people (Bakx 1987b; CNS
1985; Lamb 1986; STR-Xapuri/CUT/CNS 1989). There are now four
such areas in Acre designated to be extractive reserves (IEA
1988). I included the extractive reserve of S&o Luis do
Remanso in my study.
FUNTAC, the Acrean State Agency of Technology, is
responsible for overall management of the extractive reserves.
Funding for these reserves comes in large part from the Inter-
American Development Bank (IDB) as part of the environmental
protection plan (PMACI) that is to accompany the paving of
highway BR-364 as mentioned earlier. PMACI is the Projeto de
Protegio do Meio Ambiente e das Comunidades Indigenas or the
Project for Protection of the Environment and Indigenous
Communities.
Disputes over the nature and implementation of PMACI have
plagued the Project since its inception when the Inter-
American Development Bank (IDB) first approved financing of
the BR-364 into Acre. After the Brazilian government failed
to implement the environmental protection measures in the
PMACI as the road construction got underway, protests from
the rubber tappers, indigenous groups and environmental
organizations prompted the Bank to temporarily halt
disbursements on the loan in 1987 (The IDB 1989).
15
For the serinqueiros, a key component of the PMACI is
the extractive reserves. The CNS' proposal to add the
reserves to the Project (CNS 1987) was greatly strengthened
through the lobbying of one of the serinqueiros' leaders,
Chico Mendes, the former President of the STR-Xapuri. Chico
Mendes traveled to Miami to participate in the Bank's annual
conference (Jornal do Brasil July 6, 1987), lobbying for
extractive reserves and the protection of indigenous
communities. The final version of the PMACI calls for the
establishment of four extractive reserves in Acre
(SEPLAN/MT/BID 1988).
PMACI is important to the Projeto Seringueiro in that it
calls for the construction of six schools in the Remanso
seringal (SEPLAN/MT/BID 1988) which I included in this study.
While the Secretary of Education will be directly responsible
for the schools ibidd), FUNTAC is working closely with STR-
Xapuri and CNS representatives in Remanso to ensure that the
schools are community-based along the lines of the Projeto
Seringueiro2. The Projeto Seringueiro and FUNTAC are
designing a new curriculum to be used in the reserve schools
and in the existing Projeto schools3
Education in the Serinqal
Historically, the serinqueiros have lived in isolation
in the rain forest as dictated by their patron in the
aviamento (debt-peonage) system and by the production system
16
itself because of the need to access the scattered native
rubber trees (Weinstein 1983). The tappers therefore had no
access to education, especially since their patrons saw
literacy as a threat to their domination over the tappers
(Allegretti 1979; 1981). Illiterate and innumerate
serinqueiros posed no threat to the patron who controlled the
transactions in his accounting book which determined the debt
he held over the tappers. A serinqueiro explained the
tappers' inability to challenge the accuracy of these
transactions to Mary Allegretti in 1979 as follows:
If the serincueiro knew how to read, he would stop
dealing with the patron because all the
serinqueiros figured out that they're being
cheated; they've known it all along. Then the
patron would see that he wouldn't be able to
deceive the serinqueiro, see? This is why they
(the patrons) like the seringal. Its because they
gain a lot. It's difficult to find one (a
serinqueiro) who can even recognize his own name
(when it's written down). It's hard. Everyone's
illiterate. (Allegretti 1979:125) [translation
mine].
Although the serincueiros in my study are autonomous in
that they are not strictly under the control of such a patron,
their physical isolation and the severely inadequate
educational services offered by the Secretary of Education
and Culture (SEC) in the rural areas still deny them access
to schooling. The SEC's mandate in the rural areas is to
accompany the establishment of community-built rural schools
with pedagogic and administrative support including teacher
selection, training and evaluation and providing supplies4.
This mandate originates from the Brazilian Constitution of
17
1946 that declared education to be a right of all citizens,
that the state is to provide such education and that all
citizens are obligated to attend primary school (Teixeira
1977).
However, in 1987, less than a third of the primary
school-aged children (up to the age of 15) in the rural areas
of the municipality of Xapuri were enrolled in school (SEPLAN
1988). Even those students enrolled in school often do not
move up to continue studying at the next grade level. For
1987, the breakdown by grade levels of the 1037 students aged
7-15 enrolled in Xapuri's rural schools was as follows: 1
serie-670; 2 serie-184; 3 serie-120; 4 serie-63 ibidd). These
data indicate that less than 11% of the children enrolling in
the first series (equivalent to first grade in the U.S.
system) will likely go on to enroll in the fourth series.
There are many reasons for the low enrollments and high
drop-out rates. At one government-sponsored school that I
visited in a seringal two hours from Xapuri, the teacher
showed me the attendance book which was filled with black X's
indicating absentees. All of her students were children of
serinqueiros. Their parents kept the children out of school
for months or even a year at a time, mainly so that the
children could work at home. The teacher stated that the
parents do not value education and therefore don't always
encourage their children to study.
18
Another reason for absenteeism is a lack of merenda, the
meal provided by the SEC's Departamento de Alimentagio Escolar
(DAE). The Coordinator of Rural Education called the lack of
infrastructure, especially transportation for delivering the
merenda, the biggest problem for Acre's rural schools4. As
mentioned in Chapter II, merenda is a necessity for students
who oftentimes must walk over an hour to school and it also
serves to attract students who otherwise might go without a
mid-day meal.
Lastly, the sheer lack of rural schools makes it very
difficult for the serinaueiros and rural farmers to gain
access to education. In 1987, there were only 42 first grade
schools in the rural areas of the municipality of Xapuri
(SEPLAN 1988). The number of school-aged children (7-15
years old) in these areas was 3,665 for the same year ibidd).
This means that each of the 42 schools (almost all of which
are one-room schoolhouses) would have to serve over 87
students (assuming the students could get to the schools) in
order to achieve full enrollment.
The SEC is strapped for resources and has found it very
difficult to accompany increases in the demand for rural
schools without adequate infrastructure, especially
transportation. Therefore, the SEC relies on community
initiative and labor in setting up rural schools. The
Coordinator for Rural Education of the SEC in Acre explained
to me that if a rural community wants a school in its locale,
19
community members must construct the school using wood from
the forest in the mutirao (community work day) fashion. SEC
representatives then go to the area and conduct a survey to
select the most qualified community member to serve as a
teacher (although the community usually has already selected
someone). The SEC then provides the necessary books,
chalkboards, merenda and other supplies.
In spite of these factors that make access to education
in the seringal very difficult, the rubber tappers have
indicated throughout their unionization movement that
education is one of their primary goals (Allegretti 1981;
Sorensen 1989). The serinqueiros see education as one of the
key factors in improving their lives and strengthening their
unionization movement. According to the former President of
the Xapuri chapter of the Rural Workers' Union, the link
between literacy and the serinqueiros' struggle to preserve
the forest has been crucial to the rubber tappers' efforts'.
Organization of the Study
This link between the rubber tappers' education project
and their unionization and conservation movement is the focus
of this study. In this thesis I present the results of my
fieldwork which measured the impact of the Projeto schools and
government schools on life in the seringal. Using
questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, I examined the
dependency of the following five variables on the presence and
20
type of each school in the four serinqais: (1) rural-urban
migration, (2) self-reported literacy skills, (3) political
participation, (4) natural resource use [techniques used in
cutting rubber and hunting], and, (5) marketing tactics.
I selected these five variables because they indicate the
relationships between the rubber tappers' mobilization,
education and conservation efforts. They also reflect the
goals of the Projeto Seringueiro education project which are
to improve the quality of life of the rubber tappers and to
help create a politically active community dedicated to
preserving the rain forest. To achieve these goals, the
Projeto uses the pedagogy techniques of the Brazilian educator
Paulo Freire. In Freire's way of teaching, the participants
learn to read and write using words and images that are part
of their environment. Through discussions about these words
and images the participants critically reflect on who they are
while learning how they might go about improving their lives.
Using the tools of literacy and numeracy combined with this
critical reflection, the serinaueiros reinforce their
mobilization efforts by encouraging community participation
to affect social change. While the schools are not the sole
agent of change in the four serinqais where I conducted my
study, the variables I selected assess the impact of the
schools on life in the rain forest.
Along with the results of my interviews with the
serinqueiros, I present historical information about the union
21
and the Projeto Seringueiro. I devote this first chapter to
a brief synopsis of who the rubber tappers of Acre are and how
and why they have been mobilizing their community for over a
decade.
In Chapter II, I describe the foundation and rapid growth
of the Projeto Seringueiro (PS) education project as well as
the project's current status and scope of activities. Also
in this chapter I explore the basic tenets of the popular
education theory and methodology that the PS employs in its
schools.
The third chapter reports the results of my interviews
with 24 rubber tapper families. In this chapter I study five
aspects of the tappers' daily lives in communities with PS
schools, with a government school and with no educational
facilities at all.
Chapter IV is a continued exploration of the impact of
the schools but on a more macro-level. Here I look at the
effect of the PS on community mobilization and how such
mobilization sways national and international policies
including agrarian reform and development projects. I also
present a summary of my findings and some recommendations as
to how this popular education project might best continue to
serve its current participants and address the needs of other
communities in the future.
I conclude this thesis with a brief epilog which relates
how the Projeto Seringueiro has changed since the end of
22
September, 1988. I visited Acre during the summer of 1989 for
six weeks and conducted interviews with PS staff concerning
the growth of the Project and the impact of the death of Chico
Mendes (the Xapuri union president who was killed in December
of 1988) on the unionization movement.
Methodology
I carried out the field research for this study during
the months of June through September, 1988. From June 20 to
July 2, I participated in a course in Rio Branco entitled
"Research and Extension in Agroforestry Systems" offered by
the University of Florida and the Federal University of Acre
(UFAC). The course content, especially the three days of
field interviews with rubber tappers, was very helpful in
orienting me to the seringal. The 27 Brazilian participants
from various governmental and non-governmental institutions
whom I met during the course were very supportive as I later
carried out my own research.
I divided my research time between the urban areas of
Rio Branco and the town of Xapuri and the seringais. In Rio
Branco I visited the offices of the following institutions
to interview staff members and to gather documentation: IMAC,
IBDF, INCRA/MIRAD, CTA, CPI, SEC, INPA, SUCAM and FUNTAC (see
the List of Acronyms for a description of these institutions).
I also attended meetings with STR and FUNTAC personnel at the
FUNTAC and INCRA/MIRAD offices. The library and personnel at
23
UFAC were also a valuable source of information. In the town
of Xapuri, I interviewed staff members of SEC, PT, CTA, the
STR-Xapuri and the local hospital. I also attended the
convention of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) on July 31,
the municipal meeting of the STR-Xapuri (August 1-2) and three
meetings of the women's group sponsored by CTA throughout the
summer.
On my first visit to the town of Xapuri, I selected
initial interview sites with assistance from Dr. Marianne
Schmink and representatives of STR-Xapuri, the Conselho
Nacional dos Seringueiros (CNS) and the Centro dos
Trabalhadores da Amaz6nia (CTA). We chose interview sites to
include both governmental and Projeto Seringueiro schools.
The sites varied in their history of union activity but were
chosen to control as much as possible for differences in
distance to the nearest town, duration of the school in the
communities, and the length of residence of the tappers. The
serinaal's trails, while well known to the rubber tappers, are
very difficult for a stranger to negotiate. Other
difficulties made it unsafe for me to travel alone so we chose
interview sites such that I could find someone well known to
the union personnel to accompany me, and a reliable host
family with whom to stay.
Using SUCAM maps and the knowledge of the STR and CTA
personnel of each family in the serinaal, I selected two
colocac6es or family areas in Xapuri: one within the seringal
24
Floresta and the other in Boa Vista for my interviews with
Projeto Seringueiro communities. These combine to comprise
the first of my four study areas. My host family in each area
was my base from which I went out to interview neighbors who
lived at a one-way distance ranging from five minutes to a
three and a half hour walk. On these interview trips, I
usually was accompanied by a teenage companion or my female
host who introduced me to the neighboring family and assisted
me as necessary when difficulties in Portuguese arose. Since
I had earlier participated in union meetings in Xapuri, most
of the informants knew of my presence and were fully
cooperative in the interviews. I stayed at each base home for
a total of one to two weeks. This gave me the opportunity to
participate in family life and to observe the typical daily
work routine of the females of the household.
After later consultation with FUNTAC administrators and
researchers and with the encouragement of STR officials, I
modified my site selection to include interviews with families
in the newly created extractive reserve of Sao Luis do Remanso
and neighboring areas. With the assistance of FUNTAC and STR,
one community of Remanso was beginning construction of a
school while another was holding meetings to decide on a
school site. Since FUNTAC does not have any social scientists
on its staff, the President of FUNTAC and the research
technicians encouraged me to conduct part of my own research
in Remanso and to assist FUNTAC staff in their work with the
25
community. With the inclusion of Remanso and another location
in the surrounding forest, I had a total of four study areas.
In Sdo Luis do Remanso, I made the colocac6es
Encrusilhada/Centro Virgem my base for study Area II. It was
in this locale that the rubber tappers were constructing a
school and planned to build a health post with FUNTAC and STR-
Xapuri assistance. There had been a government school in
existence since 1984 in this area, however, the residents were
dissatisfied with the quality of the teacher, the books and
the building itself. They were participating in the
construction of a new school which would be supplied with
better materials and would have better trained community
members serving as teachers. This area is divided between the
municipalities of Xapuri and Rio Branco.
Also within Remanso, I interviewed families in the
southern section of the reserve where the FUNTAC technicians
and STR representatives were just beginning their work
centered around the colocacgo Encrenca. This area is study
site three. There was no history of a school in this area.
Accompanied by a FUNTAC researcher, I also visited
families living just outside the reserve who had no access to
a school. Some of these families lived on land owned by
Alcobras, a state-subsidized producer of sugar cane alcohol,
with whom they had verbal agreements that their rubber trails
would not be cleared for cane planting. This was the fourth
and final study area.
26
In the serincais, I interviewed 24 rubber tappers and
their families using a questionnaire. I also attended union
meetings and church gatherings held in the schools. In the
serinqal Floresta (study area I), I helped community members
paint the newly constructed school building and observed the
children's classes which started up while I was there.
Although the PMACI mandates the construction of only six
schools in Remanso (SEPLAN/MT/BID 1988:113), FUNTAC plans to
construct a total of 15 within the reserve and in surrounding
areas (FUNTAC 1988). In providing infrastructural support
such as schools and health posts as well as extending its
research efforts to areas adjacent to Remanso, FUNTAC hopes
to be able to convince policy makers to extend the reserve
boundaries to include these areas. My fourth study site is
one of these areas beyond the borders of the official reserve.
To summarize the groupings of the interviews done in
these five sites: Area I comprises the colocac6es served by
Projeto Seringueiro schools and the new cooperative. Both
the Xapuri union and the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker's
Party) are very active here. Area II is within the Remanso
reserve which currently has a government school. The Rio
Branco union has not been active here although the Xapuri
union, the Projeto Seringueiro and FUNTAC have begun community
mobilization and school construction. Area III consists of
the interviews done with families in Remanso with no access
to a school and no history of union activity. Families living
27
in Sdo Luis do Remanso (Areas II and III) can sign a renewable
20 year contract for extractive rights with INCRA, the
governmental land reform agency (INCRA 1987). Area IV includes
the families outside the extractive reserve.
With these groupings, I have covered different school
histories (Projeto Seringueiro vs. governmental vs. no
school), different forms of land tenure (union-supported
posseiro or squatter rights in Area I, a 20 year renewable
contract for extractive rights in Areas II and III, and in
Area IV, no secure land tenure), and various experiences with
unionization and politicization (see Table 1-1).
Table 1-1: Description of Interview Sites
AREA SERINGAL UNION SCHOOL COOP
ACTIVITY HISTORY
(no. of years/ (type/no.
municipality) of years)
/////////////11 ////11111/111//11////1111/11111
I Floresta 11 PS / 5 Yes
& Boa Vista Xapuri
LAND
TENURE
////////I
Posseiro
rights
II Remanso 1 govt / 5 No 20 year
Rio Branco contract
III Remanso 1 None No 20 year
Xapuri contract
IV Alcobras 0 None No Posseiro
Rio Branco rights
IIII/IIII///I//I//III/IIIIIII///I//I/I/II/I/II/I////IIII/
Notes
1 Field interviews with the President of the Sindicato dos
Trabalhadores Rurais Xapuri. Xapuri, Acre.
2 Field interviews with the Research Director of FUNTAC.
Rio Branco, Acre.
3 Field interviews with Projeto Seringueiro staff. Rio
Branco and Xapuri, Acre.
4 Field interview with the Coordinator of Education for
the Rural Zone; Secretary of Education and Culture. Rio
Branco, Acre.
CHAPTER II
THE PROJETO SERINGUEIRO POPULAR EDUCATION PROJECT
History of the Projeto Serinqueiro
The Projeto Seringueiro grew out of the rubber tappers'
recognition of their need for literacy and numeracy training
as a means of working collectively to improve their production
and their quality of life (Allegretti 1981). As explained by
Chico Mendes, the former President of the Rural Workers' Union
(STR) in Xapuri, the Projeto's schools came to be one of the
most successful mobilization tactics of the union.
When we began this fight against the destruction of the
forest in 1975, we began a struggle that faced a lot of
difficulties because the rubber tappers never learned to
read and write. So it was a real challenge to raise the
consciousness of the workers, principally the rubber
tappers. And the union in Xapuri, facing particularly
tough challenges because of the very tense situation,
felt it was the right path for us to take advancing the
fight in some way. It was at the beginning of 1980 when
we started thinking of ways to advance our struggle. And
one of the ways we discovered was to create schools for
the serinqueiros. What one saw and witnessed was that
as the serinqueiros began to study they discovered the
importance of the fight to defend the forest.1
[translation mine]
On August 1, 1981, sixteen families in the seringal
Nazare in Xapuri met with union representatives and Mary
Allegretti (a Brazilian anthropologist who had done her
CHAPTER II
THE PROJETO SERINGUEIRO POPULAR EDUCATION PROJECT
History of the Projeto Serinqueiro
The Projeto Seringueiro grew out of the rubber tappers'
recognition of their need for literacy and numeracy training
as a means of working collectively to improve their production
and their quality of life (Allegretti 1981). As explained by
Chico Mendes, the former President of the Rural Workers' Union
(STR) in Xapuri, the Projeto's schools came to be one of the
most successful mobilization tactics of the union.
When we began this fight against the destruction of the
forest in 1975, we began a struggle that faced a lot of
difficulties because the rubber tappers never learned to
read and write. So it was a real challenge to raise the
consciousness of the workers, principally the rubber
tappers. And the union in Xapuri, facing particularly
tough challenges because of the very tense situation,
felt it was the right path for us to take advancing the
fight in some way. It was at the beginning of 1980 when
we started thinking of ways to advance our struggle. And
one of the ways we discovered was to create schools for
the serinqueiros. What one saw and witnessed was that
as the serinqueiros began to study they discovered the
importance of the fight to defend the forest.1
[translation mine]
On August 1, 1981, sixteen families in the seringal
Nazare in Xapuri met with union representatives and Mary
Allegretti (a Brazilian anthropologist who had done her
31
master's research with rubber tappers) to discuss ways to
improve the tappers' production system. Out of this meeting
emerged the beginnings of the Projeto Seringueiro (Allegretti
1981), a grass roots effort to assist extractive producers in
the municipality of Xapuri in the state of Acre.
Originally the Projeto had three objectives (cooperative
marketing, education and health), all jointly designed to
improve the living conditions and production of these
families. In order to bypass the marreteiros, or middlemen,
to whom they sold their rubber and Brazil nuts, the tappers
wanted to form a marketing cooperative which would give them
more price-negotiating power both when selling their products
and buying dry goods in bulk. The serincueiros were to manage
the cooperative, although none of them had the literacy,
numeracy or managerial skills for such a task ibidd).
The rubber tappers therefore recognized that education
was one of their most immediate needs. They made plans to
construct a school in the seringal, designed specifically for
their way of life, where they could gain these skills. Not
only would literacy and numeracy training help them increase
their economic gain since they would be able to check the
credit and debit sheets of the traders, but they also would
gain access to printed information about the union and their
legal rights as workers. All of the families in this group
of sixteen were active union participants and were therefore
increasingly aware of the importance of mobilization and of
32
their rights under workers' legislation. However, illiteracy
still remained a major impediment to them both in terms of
controlling market transactions and being able to critically
learn more about their rights and responsibilities as rural
workers and union members ibidd).
The families of these rural workers were physically
isolated from educational facilities and health services.
The nearest clinic and hospital are in the town of Xapuri, a
two day walk from Nazare. Nazare rubber tappers therefore
also planned to later construct a health post to be staffed
by a trained member of the community (Allegretti 1981) where
they could receive basic medical attention.
Following this meeting, CEDOP-AM (Centro de Documentacdo
e Pesquisa da Amaz6nia), a local non-governmental
organization, took action on its mandate from the tappers to
seek funding and technical assistance for the school and the
cooperative (Allegretti 1981; Bakx 1986). CEDOP-AM is now
defunct but in effect has been replaced by the CTA (Centro dos
Trabalhadores da Amaz6nia), a non-governmental organization
with offices in Xapuri and Rio Branco. The Projeto
Seringueiro is one of the CTA's projects along with a women's
group, an oral history project and a marketing/consumer
cooperative.
Marketing Cooperatives
CEDOP-AM personnel obtained financial support from Oxfam-
UK for the initial cooperative in Nazare and for others that
were later established in other serinaais (Bakx 1986; Oxfam
1986), as well as assistance from a European church
organization which paid for a mule in the Floresta cooperative
(Schwartzman & Allegretti n.d.). For the first few years,
these cooperatives functioned well (Oxfam 1986; Schwartzman
& Allegretti n.d.). However, by 1984 all of these initial
cooperative efforts had failed due to lack of capital
(Schwartzman & Allegretti n.d.) and poor management2. When
CTA and STR-Xapuri personnel began the initial steps toward
creating a new cooperative, they encountered strong resistance
from many of the rubber tappers who were reluctant to join in
such efforts after the failure of the first cooperatives in
the early 1980s. After more than a year of strenuous work,
holding meetings in the seringal and in town to catalyze
commitment to the cooperative, the manager of the CTA
cooperative had 15 members who had paid their initial dues of
50 kilos of rubber or the equivalent in another crop. On June
30, 1988 he negotiated the coop's first sale which paid
members 17% above the going market rate per kilo of rubber.
The cooperative also sold dry goods which it had purchased in
bulk at lower than market prices. By September of 1988 the
cooperative had more than doubled its membership and was in
the process of electing members to serve as officers.
34
A very important characteristic of this cooperative is
that it began with no external financial assistance2. The
cooperatives initially formed with CEDOP's support in the
early 1980s were possible only through low (or zero) interest
financial assistance and technical support (Bakx 1986). While
CTA staff were necessary to stimulate interest and provide
initial management for the present attempt at cooperativeness,
the rubber tappers put up their own resources to provide the
initial capital.
The manager of the cooperative stated that the schools
of the Projeto Seringueiro were vital to the success of this
effort in that they provide the literacy and numeracy skills
necessary for the cooperative members. Aside from this the
schools sustain the community by providing a forum for
communication and leadership development, both of which were
critical in garnering the support for this most recent
cooperative effort2
The First Schools
At that first meeting in August of 1981, the tappers made
it clear that they wanted a school designed specifically for
their way of life in terms of location, construction, schedule
and thematic orientation of the classes (Allegretti 1981).
When describing the success of the first school in Nazare,
Mendes stated, "The most important aspect of this school that
helped us strengthen our cause is that we did not accept a
school with the political orientation of the official
35
[educational] system. We looked for people that really had
a base in popular education that was different from what one
usually sees in this country".' Tailoring the school
physically and ideologically to the reality of the rubber
tappers' culture and environment was their primary goal
(Allegretti 1981). The tappers themselves took care of
locating the building in an easily accessible part of the
seringal, constructing the school of local materials in the
traditional design and arranging class times to match their
production schedules. CEDOP-AM staff requested assistance
from CEDI (Centro de Documentagdo e Informaq&o) in Sao Paulo
to design the educational materials (Araripe 1988; CEDI 1984;
Oxfam 1986). Oxfam-UK provided financial support for the
first school in the form of school supplies and materials
needed for the Projeto staff who served as the first monitors
or teachers (Bakx 1986; Oxfam 1986).
While CEDOP-AM personnel were securing the funding for
the cooperative and the school, the tappers started
constructing the school building in the colocacao Deserto
within the seringal Nazare. Using a local palm called paxiuba
(Socratea exhorrhiza) for the floor and walls and ouricuri
(Attalea excelsa) for the thatch roof, members of the
community drew from their experience of communal work days
(mutirdo) and labor exchanges between neighbors to build the
Projeto's first school. By using these forest products, the
serinqueiros gave value to and reproduced the local culture
36
and indigenous knowledge (Projeto Seringueiro 1987) while at
the same time strengthening community ties. As the
school was being built by the tappers, CEDI's popular
education staff members worked closely with a CEDOP-AM
representative to ensure that the materials they developed for
the Projeto Seringueiro would fit into the cultural context
of the rubber tappers' with its oral tradition and limited
exposure to printed materials (CEDI 1984). They began their
work late in 1981 and, by June, 1982, CEDI and CEDOP-AM were
testing the first versions of the material, entitled PORONGA,
in the colocacao "Ja com Fome" (Already Hungry) in Nazare
ibidd). By the first semester of 1983, CEDI had created and
revised the three Projeto Seringueiro notebooks (Portuguese,
mathematics and the monitor's manual) which were now ready for
use in the schools ibidd).
CEDI personnel applied the methodology of the Brazilian
educator Paulo Freire in creating the PORONGA workbooks. The
basic ideas behind Freire's popular education and liberation
theology approach and how CEDI incorporated these into PORONGA
are explained in the next section.
The Theoretical Basis of Popular Education: The Projeto
Serinqueiro's Educational Materials and the Paulo Freire
Methodology
When the rubber tappers first started talking about
creating schools in the seringal in 1980, they explicitly
wanted an experience different from that of the state school.
37
Their primary goal was learning to read and write so that they
could manage their new cooperative (Allegretti 1981), so they
wanted a school that would teach them practical skills based
in the reality of their daily lives. An educational program
that addressed social problems by combining literacy and
numeracy training with practical applications was therefore
expected to be more effective than the traditional, formal
school approach (La Belle 1984). The union hoped that with the
development of a literate serinqueiro community, the unions'
members could more easily register to vote, read local
newspapers and union flyers, negotiate with traders and the
barracdo (the patron's trading post), manage cooperatives and,
most importantly, reflect on their collective situation and
critically evaluate their options to improve their lives.
Along with the union, the other non-governmental organizations
contributing to this project were concerned with the rights
of the rubber tappers; they believed that community
development projects such as this one were a viable means of
empowering individuals and the community to successfully
exercise those rights. By applying Paulo Freire's ideology
in this education project, the rubber tappers and their
supporting organizations were striving to redress the
illiteracy and lack of critical experience in political
participation of the community, a process which Freire saw as
an inevitable component of democratization (Freire 1983a).
38
As mentioned earlier, the title of the three notebooks
created by CEDI and CEDOP-AM was PORONGA, after the kerosene
head lamp of the same name that the tappers use when cutting
rubber before daybreak. CEDI and CEDOP-AM designed the
PORONGA materials to literally "light the way" for the rubber
tappers, who would be exploring different ways of thinking and
seeing the world with their new skills (Araripe 1988; CEDI
1984).
In creating these workbooks for the Projeto Seringueiro,
the staff from CEDI's popular education program combined their
own experience in working with ecclesiastical base communities
(CEBs) of the Catholic church and other rural and urban
popular education movements with the adult education
methodology designed by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire
(CEDI 1984). Freire based his methodology on the theory that
education is never neutral; it is a dialog between the
educator and the learner (CECUP n.d.). For this reason he
rejected the use of cartilhas or primer textbooks. In his
view such books are "pre-fabricated" and easily allow the
instructor to direct the thinking of the student, thereby also
enabling the instructor to influence the political
consciousness of the student (Brandao 1986:22).
Instead, Freire advocated the use of sixteen to twenty-
three palavras geradoras or key vocabulary words which are
commonly used and which collectively reflect the social
reality of the school's community (Brandao 1986:30-31; Freire
39
1983b). He also encouraged the use of photographs or drawings
that depict the participant's environment (LaBelle 1974). In
order to discover which words and pictures are most
appropriate for each community, researchers must delve into
the spoken universe of the culture.
With the assistance of a representative from CEDOP-AM,
CEDI's personnel did this by studying previous research done
with the rubber tappers (i.e. Allegretti 1979), listening to
taped interviews, and meeting with the Xapuriense rubber
tappers to learn about their production and marketing systems
and their way of life (CEDI 1984). Based on these
experiences, they selected the key vocabulary words and a
combination of photographs and drawings to be used in the
educational materials. The resulting palavras aeradoras which
they selected for the PORONGA portuguese notebook are shown
in Table 2-1.
The seringueiro community, CEDI and CEDOP-AM designed
the PORONGA workbooks for adults since the original objective
of the PS schools was literacy training of the rubber tappers
for cooperative management (Araripe 1988). However, children
became intrigued when they saw their parents studying3 and
they too began attending classes. For lack of an alternative,
the PS began teaching the children with the PORONGA books,
even though some of the vocabulary words, such as posse, were
not appropriate for the younger children2. Although Projeto
staff intended to create new materials for the children along
40
the lines of PORONGA as well as more advanced books for the
adults, changes in personnel and restructuring of the Projeto
prevented the development of these books4
Once students attained basic literacy skills using the
PORONGA, the Projeto lacked more advanced materials to
continue the education program. Instead of disbanding their
classes, they decided to use government textbooks both for
their more advanced and younger students4. Beginning in May,
1988, they introduced A Cartilha da Mimi (Mimi's Primer) in
the children's classes. FAE (Funda&Ao de Assistdncia da
Educaqio), supplied these books free of charge. Mimi and
other government-produced textbooks are geared for students
at particular educational levels and were therefore useful to
a degree in the PS schools. However, unlike the PORONGA
materials, they do not reflect the serinqueiros' environment
and culture. Instead, they offer an animated and romanticized
image of urban living an image that is contrary to the goal
of the rubber tappers' movement which is to reinforce a
positive viewpoint of the tappers' forest existence4
At a training session held in April of 1988 to introduce
monitors to Mimi, Projeto staff worked with the monitors to
help them take some ideas from Mimi and re-interpret them in
the serinqueiro's context. However, some of the monitors had
difficulty in modifying the ideas when teaching the children.
Table 2-1: Key Vocabulary Words in Projeto Seringueiro's
PORONGA Portuguese Notebook
mata
nato
Raca
comida
morada
iirau
marina
rede
barracAo
corte
borracha
spp.
cooperative
empate
sindicato
posse
escola
caca
farinha
diet
querosene
febre
paxiuba
trabalho
riqueza
governo
serinqueiro
forest
duck
Aqouti paca, a game animal
food
rubber tapper's house
window-shelf used for washing
dishes and preparing food
a local palm
hammock
trading post operated by the local
patron
the cut made in the rubber tree to
extract latex
rubber from the latex of the Hevea
cooperative
community demonstration to stop
clearing of the forest by cattle
ranchers
union
claiming a property through occupancy
squatters' rights
school
hunt
manioc flour (Mandioca esculenta), a
staple in the rubber tapper's
kerosene
fever
a local palm (Socratea exhorrhiza)
work
wealth
government
rubber tapper
Source: CEDI and CEDOP-AM. 1982.
Portuauds. Sao Paulo: CEDI.
PORONGA: Caderno de
u
A Comparative Look at the Government Textbooks
One of the monitors explained how difficult it was to
temper Mimi to make it applicable to the children: "It's very
difficult to work with the government textbooks because the
palavras qeradoras like grape, lion and airplane are unknown
in the seringal. Rubber tappers never see these things up
close" (Araripe 1988:39 [translation mine]). In referring to
another government textbook, one monitor commented, "In terms
of the content, I confess that I have a lot of difficulty,
even though it is getting easier. My biggest complaint is
that the book talks about things that even I don't understand.
And how am I going to teach what I don't know?" (Projeto
Seringueiro 1987b [translation mine]). Some of the words
used in a spelling exercise in Cartilha da Mimi shown in Table
2-2 illustrate this problem. While most of the words are quite
appropriate to the lives of the serinqueiros, they are
presented in a fashion quite alien to the tappers' situation.
For example, in looking at the graphics used to depict
the word "duck", one of the words common to both PORONGA and
A Cartilha da Mimi, one can see why the monitors and Projeto
staff are dissatisfied with the government texts. PORONGA
shows the animal in flight with its flock (CEDI and CEDOP-AM
1982:8), a sight that the tappers are likely to see and can
easily relate to. In A Cartilha da Mimi, the bird is dressed
in a floppy-brimmed hat, wearing a beaded necklace and
carrying a purse. By treating the animal more as a cartoon
43
than as a living creature, the lesson has little applicability
or meaning to the children once they learn how to spell and
read the word because there is no reference point for such a
fantasized depiction in their own lives.
In PORONGA, the same animal is shown as part of the
tappers' environment. Therefore learning to spell and read
this particular word is more applicable to their reality.
From this word the monitors may generate a class discussion
about the different animals the tappers hunt or tame and the
importance of preserving the forest which is home to the
serinaueiros and these animals.
The Projeto Seringueiro does not intend to shelter the
serinqueiro from the reality of urban life and other
lifestyles outside of the seringal. As pointed out by Thomas
LaBelle, one variation of Freire's methodology uses images
from the mass media as an object of discussion and reflection
in a "pedagogy of communication" (LaBelle 1984:85). The
Projeto Seringueiro is in the process of developing new
materials (to be discussed later in more detail) which
introduce urban concepts and lifestyles to the rubber tappers
in a context of discussion about their relation to the
serinqueiro's lives. However, the concern of the Projeto
staff is that Mimi presents these mass media and urban images
without a contextual pedagogical setting (or monitors able to
create this setting) which would facilitate the rubber
tappers' reflection and interpretation of such concepts.
Table 2-2: Spelling Words in
A Cartilha da Mimi
aviao
elefante
ilha
ovo
uva
tatu
lata
vaca
dado
rato
pata
navio
banana
janela
sapo
faca
xale
qato
airplane
elephant
island
egg
grape
armadillo
can
cow
dice
rat
duck
ship
banana
window
frog
knife
scarf
cat
Source: Sissi Duarte. no date. A Cartilha da Mimi.
Paulo: Instituto Brasileira de Ediq6es Pedag6gicas.
S8o
Discussion Themes Generated by PORONGA
Reflection and discussion by the participants about such
images and ideas are key components of Freire's methodology.
This applicability or pragmatism is one of three criteria used
in the selection of the key words. While the other two
criteria, syntax and meaning (semantics), are usually found
in other approaches to literacy training, the additional
requirement of pragmatism is unique to Freire's methodology
(Brand&o 1986). During the lesson, the monitor uses each of
the key words to catalyze a discussion in the direction of
a particular tema gerador or theme generated by the word
itself (Brandao 1986). These debates and discussions are a
critical component of what Freire termed "functional literacy"
(ibid:36). This type of learning involves not only mastery
of basic literacy and numeracy skills, but also develops the
capacity to reflect upon and critically discuss these themes
with one's peers, thereby enabling the individual and the
community to evaluate options and choose actions to better
their lives (Freire 1983a; 1983b).
Discussions about these themes provide the participants
with the opportunity to explore and debate the ideas and
questions generated by the key words. In the case of the
rubber tappers in Xapuri, discussions held on Sunday
afternoons in the first schools revolved around the management
and purpose of the cooperative (Oxfam 1986).
46
A valid criticism of some of the educational programs
which use this methodology is that they rely too heavily on
the individual participant's initiative to put into action
what he [sic] has learned and enact social change (LaBelle
1984). LaBelle argues that while the educational program
makes the peasant aware of his/her reality it may not take
the next step so that the peasant participant "has not been
given any tools with which he can change his environment and
he has not been informed of alternative channels to which he
can direct his energies" (LaBelle 1984:87).
However, the Projeto Seringueiro project does provide
that direction and those channels through its links with other
organizations. The mutualistic relationships of the Projeto
with the CEBs of the Catholic church, the CTA's other projects
(including the cooperative, the women's group and oral history
projects), FUNTAC, Instituto de Estudos Amazonicos or IEA (a
research and conservation NGO in Curitiba directed by Mary
Allegretti), and the Partido dos Trabalhadores all provide the
"tools" that the rubber tappers can use to exercise their
rights and preserve the forest in which they live. As will
be shown in Chapter III, rubber tappers who attended the
Projeto Seringueiro schools are more conscious of their
potential to affect change through community and individual
actions and are empowering themselves to do so, more so than
their counterparts with no education or with only government
school experience.
47
Both the curriculum and the schedule of the Projeto
Seringueiro classes are geared toward this formative process
in which the participant learns about his/her capabilities to
enact social change. Table 2-3 outlines the key words of
PORONGA and the discussion themes that they generate. The
schedule of the first schools (created in the early 1980s)
was such that classes were held on Saturday afternoons and
evenings and on Sunday mornings, leaving Sunday afternoons
free for discussions about the cooperative and the union
(Oxfam 1986).
Not only do discussions surrounding these topics help
the individual and his/her community to self-empowerment, but
they also increase communication within the community. Such
dialog is essential for resolving conflicts which are certain
to appear in any community-based activity. When deciding
whether to stage an empate or selecting leaders for the new
cooperative, these negotiating and communication skills are
invaluable for a community such as the rubber tappers' which
requires cohesion for successful action.
The role of the monitor in the Freire methodology is to
actively participate in such debates and discussions, not as
a teacher but as a peer engaged in dialog (Brandao 1986; CECUP
n.d.; LaBelle 1984). This harkens back to Freire's basic
contention that no one educates any one else and no one
Table 2-3: Discussion Themes Generated by the Key Words
in Projeto Seringueiro's PORONGA
UNIT #
KEY WORDS
THEME
1 mata pato the importance of the
paca comida forest in the lives of
the rubber tappers
2 morada jirau the transformation of
jarinha rede nature by people
3 barracAo corte the traditional
borracha system of rubber
tapping
4 cooperative the struggle for new
empate working conditions
sindicato
posse
5 escola the right to education
6 caca farinha the right to food and
querosene febre health
7 paxiuba trabalho poverty and wealth
riqueza governor
seringueiro
the life of the rubber
tapper and the Projeto
Source: CEDI and CEDOP-AM. 1982.
Portuaurs. Sao Paulo: CEDI.
PORONGA: Caderno de
learns alone (Brandao 1986; CECUP n.d). The monitor or
animador is present to encourage his/her illiterate peers,
catalyze discussions and also to learn and explore just as the
other participants are doing.
For this reason, Freire rejects the terms sala de aula
(classroom) and turma de alunos (class of students) in favor
of circulo de cultural or cultural circle (Brandao 1986:42).
This phrase creates an image of a more horizontal and
egalitarian educational process than the traditional
arrangement of a teacher imparting a store of knowledge to a
group of students (CECUP n.d; LaBelle 1984). In Freire's
approach, the monitor learns right along with the other
participants.
The Projeto Serinaueiro Today
The rubber tappers in Nazare have since re-constructed
the Projeto's first school with more durable wood from a dead
Brazil nut tree (Bertholettia excelsa). On December 12, 1987,
they dedicated their new school in the name of Wilson da Souza
Pinheiro, the President of the Brasileia chapter of the union
who was murdered in July of 1980. Tappers in eight other
serinaais in Xapuri have since built their own schools,
several of which are now in a second-generation building
similar to the Pinheiro school at Nazare. As of September,
1988, the total number of Projeto schools stood at 194. An
additional two schools were in the initial stages of meeting
50
at a monitor's home4. By May of 1989, the Projeto had a
reported total of 25 schools (Araripe 1989).
How a Community Creates and Maintains a Projeto School
As with the first school in Nazare, all of these Projeto
Seringueiro schools originate within the community. The
rubber tappers meet in the seringal to discuss the need for
a school (the number and ages of potential students), the
location most accessible to families in the area, and
community members with the interest and potential to serve as
monitors. Meetings are usually held on Sunday mornings.
Oftentimes whole families travel up to 2-3 hours to attend.
Discussions are open to anyone; women and young adults who
tend to hang back are encouraged to voice their opinions. All
of the decisions made at these meetings rest with the
community, not with the Projeto Seringueiro staff or union
representatives, although these people are usually in
attendance. Sometimes the initial impetus for building a
school comes out of the serinqueiros' community experiences
of CEB participation.
The monitors in the Projeto Seringueiro are community
members selected by their peers for these positions. Monitors
are usually people who are working either with the church or
the union and are therefore already community leaders of
sorts. If such a person is not available in the community,
the community member with the highest degree of literacy
51
skills may be selected to serve as a monitor even though these
skills may not be more than basic literacy4. The tappers
and their families also decide when changes need to be made
in the school. If problems arise with the monitorss, the
building itself or the administration of the school by the
Projeto, the community meets to discuss possible solutions.
The dedicatory names of the schools, as shown in Table 2-4,
reflect the community's interests and oftentimes serve to
commemorate leaders of the church or the rubber tappers'
movement.
The community maintains the school building while the
Projeto Seringueiro staff provide the necessary books and
materials. Aside from the PORONGA workbooks, all other
textbooks and equipment including pencils and notebooks are
provided by the Secretary of Education and Culture (SEC)3'4'5.
The SEC also supplies the merenda, a snack which the Secretary
receives from the Student Assistance Foundation (FAE)45'6.
The Secretary's Departamento de AlimentagAo Escolar (DAE)
distributes the merenda to the prefeituras (municipal
governments) who turn it over to the Projeto Seringueiro for
distribution to the schools' monitors6
Political interests and alliances come into play at the
prefeitura level which controls actual distribution. Although
political control of the merenda distribution does sometimes
keep it from the Projeto schools4, low merenda supplies and
Table 2-4: Projeto Seringueiro School Names
NAME OF SCHOOL
TRANSLATION AND DESCRIPTION
Wilson Pinheiro da Souza
Ivair de Almeida
Nossa Senhora das Dores
Jesus Matias
1986
Esperanga do Povo
Novo Esperanga
Centro Escolar de
Liberdade
S&o Jorge
Unido
9 de Dezembro
of
Fe em Deus
Chico Mendes
killed
December 22,
President of STR-Brasileia;
killed by cattle ranchers
July, 1980
Monitor for the Catholic
Church; killed by ranchers'
gunmen June, 1988
Our Lady of Suffering
A union leader killed in
in Xapuri
Hope of the People
New Hope
Scholastic Center for
Liberation
Saint George
Alliance/Harmony
Ninth of December the date
the school's dedication
Faith in God
President of STR-Xapuri;
by cattle ranchers
1988
wit ro et eringuero sta; Projeto Seringueiro tles;
for Jesus Matias school: Araripe 1989; for Chico Mendes
School: Kent Redford, personal communication 1989.
[translation mine]
''
' @ ..
-' --
53
poor transportation are often to blame for empty shelves in
all of the rural schools6. In the fall of 1988, the Projeto
and SEC negotiated a new agreement wherein the PS merenda
would go directly to the Projeto for distribution4.
Merenda is a very important component of the rural school
service and serves in many cases to attract students who
otherwise would not attend school. Especially in the remote
areas where students walk up to 2-3 hours one way to school,
it is physically very difficult to concentrate in class on an
empty stomach and then to find the energy to make the return
trip.
The Student Population
The success and popularity of the schools have been such
that the Projeto's 19 schools today serve approximately 600
students, 60% of whom are children (ages 15 and younger). The
overall student population is fairly evenly split along gender
lines with 53% male students and 47% female. Monitors and
Projeto Seringueiro staff interviewed during this study
indicated that the adult student population is more heavily
dominated by males. Classes meet for an average of 21.75
hours per week (n=10; range 15-35) divided into weekday
sessions. Daily class sessions last an average of 4.35 hours
(n=10; range 3-7). While the children's lessons are usually
held on a daily basis, the adults prefer evening or weekend
classes, depending on the location of the school and the
availability of generators to provide light. When generators
54
are not available, as is often the case, the tappers study by
small kerosene lamps or their porongas. The one school with
weekend classes for which information was available holds
sessions for eight hours, spread between late Saturday
afternoon and Sunday morning. Students travel an average of
1.1 hours each way to school (n=26; range 0-3). All students
and monitors travel by foot to their classes. This travel
time ranges from having class right at home to a one-way three
hour walk every day. One group of students attending weekend
classes at the "Jesus Matias" school has a trip that usually
lasts up to four hours as they make side trips to pick up
younger students who cannot walk alone and whose parents
cannot leave the house to escort them. This trip also
involves carrying food for the weekend as well as a hammock
to sleep in at the school. This group of students is
preparing to construct a school in their own colocacdo so that
they can have daily classes. For the monitors, the average
travel time to school is 50 minutes one way (n=25; range 0-
2.5 hours)
Women's Participation in the Schools
As mentioned earlier, the current overall student
population is fairly evenly split along gender lines.
However, the monitors and PS staff indicated that the number
of adult women participating in the schools is fairly low.
When an Oxfam-UK representative visited one of the Projeto
schools in 1982, he noted that women were not participating
55
because of work that required them to stay at home and "social
convention" (Oxfam 1986:3). To address this problem, Oxfam
provided a rice huller at one of the schools to give women
more free time and a communal meeting place ibidd). Today,
quite a few of the monitors for CEBs in the seringal are
female as are roughly a third of the Projeto monitors. Still,
women in the seringal have few role models or examples of
occasions when literacy and numeracy skills would be of use
to them and adult female participation in the schools remains
quite low.
Several of the women whom I interviewed during this study
said that they had no reason to read and write or that they
were too old to learn. They justified this by saying that in
the serinaal it is usually the eldest male in the family who
makes the monthly trip into town to do the market transactions
and perform other business such as visiting the sindicato
office or dealing with the prefeito's office for
documentation. It has also been customary that if the eldest
male in a household is a member of the sindicato or of a
political party, then his vote or participation counts for the
whole family. In addition, it is oftentimes the males in the
family who market the family's cash crops of rubber and Brazil
nuts (although there are many exceptions). The women
therefore saw little need to learn numeracy skills since they
are principally involved in the crops consumed at home (rice,
manioc and beans) which, when infrequently marketed, are
56
handled by the men. Since many women seldom go into town,
they don't consider themselves in need of cash for their own
purposes. For these reasons, many women may not see any
immediate need or practical application for literacy or
numeracy skills for themselves.
Another factor which inhibits women's participation in
the schools and meetings is child care and domestic work
combined with the class meeting times. Each community decides
on its class meeting times depending on its students'
responsibilities at home and their travel times to and from
school. In terms of the students' duties, the three strongest
determining factors considered when planning class meeting
times are the time demands (daily and seasonal) for rubber
tapping, clearing and preparation of the rocado (small
agricultural plot) and gathering Brazil nuts. All three of
these activities are traditionally performed by men.
Therefore the schedules which the communities design allow for
maximum participation of the males and children, since it is
their activities which are taken into account during
scheduling.
In spite of these difficulties, adult women are
participating in the Projeto Seringueiro classes in growing
numbers, due largely to an increasing recognition by union
officials of the importance of women in the serinqueiro
movement and to an expanding women's group created by the CTA.
The union in Xapuri is working with CTA staff to incorporate
57
women into the union membership with benefits specifically for
women. The CTA's women's group is also influential in
enlightening women about their role in the rubber tappers'
movement and the need to participate in the schools and other
activities. At the municipal meeting of the STR-Xapuri in
August of 1988, several of the rubber tappers (both male and
female) took the floor to remind those gathered that women and
children have always been a key component of the empates
against clearing in the rain forest. Several speakers also
noted that although it will be difficult for some men to
reconcile themselves to having women playing stronger roles
in the union, such changes are necessary for women, for the
success of the movement and the defense of the forest.
Some of the women are somewhat embarrassed about taking
on the role of a "student". Yet many other women actively
participate in classes and/or meetings, strongly voicing their
opinions and encouraging other women to do so. To increase
women's participation and confidence, the CTA's women's group
plans to strengthen its rural health education efforts and to
set up a cooperative to market handicrafts and foods while
passing this "traditional" knowledge on to their daughters.
The Relationship of the Schools to the Household Division of
Labor and the Production System
Just as domestic work keeps some adult women from
participating in the school, the other students also have
other duties to fulfill. Outside of the time spent in class,
58
all of the students have duties at home which average 5.5
hours per day (n=10; range 3-8) according to the monitors of
ten Projeto schools who were surveyed as part of this study.
These duties, when combined with travel and class time, make
for a very long and strenuous day for those attending school.
Many parents commented that although their children's
absence(s) from the household labor force puts an extra burden
on other family members, the benefits gained through
participation in school more than compensated for their lost
work time.
In the serinaal, the younger children (10 years old or
younger) often are responsible for assisting with chores
around the house. These chores include feeding the domestic
animals, hulling rice, shelling beans, cleaning the house and
fetching water and fuelwood. Since all of these duties are
almost exclusively under the traditional domain of the female,
it is the female head of the household or other adult or young
adult females who have to pick up the slack when the younger
children are in school and cannot perform these duties. This
situation also makes it especially difficult for the adult
females to attend classes since there is a extra amount of
work they would leave behind.
The older children usually are responsible for helping
their same-sex parent with his/her duties. Older boys either
tap rubber or go out on the trail later in the day to gather
the latex that has collected in the tigela (a small cup
59
anchored on the tree to collect the dripping latex). They
also are heavily involved in the clearing and burning for the
rocado. Teenage or young adult females are responsible for
a large part of the domestic chores.
For those persons who tap the rubber trees and/or later
collect the latex, the manner in which they process the latex
can determine the number of hours and the time of day that
they may attend class. Once a serinqueiro has cut the exocarp
of the tree, the milky latex will drip into a plastic or metal
cup (tiqela) or an empty Brazil nut pod for several hours.
There are several different ways by which the rubber tapper
can process the latex before marketing, each with varying time
requirements. Most tappers in Xapuri use the prensa technique
which allows them to let the latex coagulate in the tigela so
that they do not necessarily have to make two trips on the
same estrada (rubber trail) in one day. After letting the
latex coagulate into biscuit-shaped lumps in the ticela, the
rubber tapper then presses these "biscuits" together in a bale
shape which goes directly to market. The key point regarding
the prensa method is that one person has to walk the estrada
in the morning to cut the trees but the latex collection can
be put off a day or two since the latex is just allowed to
coagulate naturally. This means that either the rubber tapper
and/or his/her children are free in the afternoon for other
work or classes.
60
The second most common method of processing the latex is
by forming a pela (a smoked ball of rubber). This process
requires that the latex be collected from the tigela before
it coagulates. This means that either the tapper or his/her
children have to walk the same estrada three to four hours
after the cuts are made in the trees. The liquid latex is
then brought back to be smoked. The latex is poured over a
form or an already existing yet incomplete pela which is
turned over a smoking fire. With the heat and smoke, the
latex coagulates and eventually forms a complete Dela as more
latex is poured on. The serinqueiro must smoke the latex each
afternoon that the trees are cut, otherwise the latex will
coagulate naturally. For the Projeto, this means that older
children and/or serinqueiros cannot attend afternoon classes
because they are either out on the estrada collecting the
latex or at the colocacao smoking the rubber to form the pela.
There is a third processing method which may become
significant for the Projeto's classes. This is the folha
fumada (smoked sheet), a high quality product that the
serinqueiros produce cooperatively at a mini-usina (small
factory). FUNTAC is encouraging the formation of cooperatives
in the extractive reserves (FUNTAC 1988) which they hope will
opt to set up these mini-usinas so that rubber tappers will
have a high quality product which they can sell directly to
industrial buyers'. During the 1985 Encontro Nacional dos
Seringueiros (National Rubber Tapper's Meeting), the
61
serinqueiros of Amazonia resolved to support the formation of
cooperatives and that mini-usinas be administered solely by
rubber tappers with technical assistance from SUDHEVEA, the
now defunct National Superintendency for the Development of
Rubber (CNS 1985). This means that production of the folha
fumada will most likely become more prevalent. The
implications of this for the Projeto Seringueiro are described
below.
As with the Dela, production of the folha fumada also
requires liquid latex which is then smoked. To delay
coagulation of the latex until the serinqueiro goes to the
mini-usina (approximately every five days), he/she adds
ammonia to the liquid latex. At the mini-usina, the rubber
tappers add acid to coagulate the latex and then press the
resultant coagulated solution to remove most of the water.
[At this point, it may be possible to use tucupi, an acidic
extract of the manioc plant (Manihot esculenta Crantz),
thereby eliminating the cost of purchasing acid (EMBRAPA
1985).] Next, the sheet is smoked in an enclosed structure
which relieves the serinqueiro of having to sit over a smokey
fire as he/she must do while forming a Dela. The sheet is
translucent so that any impurities may be cut out, thereby
enabling the tappers to command a higher price than they can
for the pela or the prensa rubber. While the mini-usina can
be constructed with forest materials, the processing equipment
and chemical costs for the folha fumada require the latex
62
tapped by 20-30 serinqueiros to be cost-effective (EMBRAPA
1983; SUDHEVEA n.d. (a); SUDHEVEA n.d.(b)). In order to
purchase the equipment, a cooperative of serinqueiros would
have to borrow the money which could be paid back within two
years out of their coop's profits.
There is another processing technique which produces the
placa bruta (a cruder form of the folha fumada) that has been
proposed to the serinqueiros by SUDHEVEA. The placa can be
produced by each serinqueiro at his/her home using a process
very similar to that of the mini-usina. Instead of purchasing
ammonia and acid, the tapper can use the extracts of other
trees (gamileira or caximquba and aqua de limbo) However,
the placa bruta is an untested product and the tappers are
wary of adopting this technology even though SUDHEVEA had
"promised" them the same market price for the placa bruta as
the higher quality folha fumada'.
Adoption of the folha fumada is therefore a very real
possibility for the tappers in existing and future extractive
reserves and for the Xapuriense tappers. These techniques
will more than likely put the burden of latex collection on
the older male children in the seringal. One Projeto monitor
pointed out that the communities will have to shuffle their
schedules to allow for this daily time constraint in the
production system (collecting the latex from one trail may
take up to four hours) or the children with this
responsibility may have to miss class.
63
Research underway by FUNTAC and a University of Acre
project team to concentrate the rubber trees nearer the
serinqueiro's house or rocado and thereby reduce the time
involved in tapping and collecting latex could contribute to
the resolution of this problem, however such a project would
require years for the trees to grow to tapping age (eight to
ten years).
The Projeto Serinqueiro's Monitors
As with the students, the Projeto Seringueiro's monitors
also have duties other than those at the school. By September
of 1988, the Projeto had a total of 33 monitors who led the
classes and discussions. In September of 1988, the Projeto
conducted a survey of its 33 monitors, twenty-five of which
were available during my time in Acre. The 25 available
responses to that survey indicate that 68% of the monitors are
male. Of these, 67% are single, while only 13% of the female
monitors are unmarried. According to the Projeto's survey,
the number of children for the monitors' families was 2.5
while for my overall study population it was six per family.
While eleven of the 33 monitors receive a contractual
salary from the Secretary of Education and Culture4'5 (Araripe
1989), the other monitors are working on a volunteer basis.
Some monitors are able to serve in the school only because
they live with or near relatives who can help them with their
familial responsibilities.
64
Many of the monitors have dual or triple roles as
community leaders. Of 22 monitors surveyed, all participate
in the STR-Xapuri in some capacity. While 77% are members of
the STR, 23% are local delegates who represent their community
in the municipal meetings. Additionally, 22% (n=5) of 23
survey respondents serve as monitors in the base community of
the Catholic church in their community. These five monitors
have triple roles of church monitor, Projeto monitor and STR
delegate. They therefore have many obligations both in town
and in the seringal. Their Projeto Seringueiro duties include
not only travel time (an average of 50 minutes one way), but
also time preparing for class, attending Projeto training
Sessions and meetings or dealing with transporting or
preparing the merenda.
The Projeto Seringueiro is evaluating its operations,
re-training its monitors and creating new workbooks for its
younger students. As part of this process, PS personnel hope
to increase the capacity of the monitors and the number of
monitors receiving a contractual SEC salary, although local
politics unfavorable to the rubber tappers' movement hamper
the awarding of new contracts4. According to Araripe, the
number of monitors had risen to 54 by May of 1989 (Araripe
1989). This is a result of various communities constructing
a school and choosing a monitor, oftentimes without
accompaniment by the Projeto Seringueiro, as the demand for
schools outstripped the Projeto's resources. Therefore,
65
before negotiating new SEC salaries, the Projeto wants to make
sure that the monitors are properly trained and that they are
the best candidates from their respective communities for the
job.
Monitor Training
SEC offers supplemental training for teachers in the
rural and urban areas through its LOGOS program. This program
gives rural teachers the opportunity to complete their first
or second grade certification by taking LOGOS courses during
semester breaks. (First grade in Brazil is roughly equivalent
to completion of middle or intermediate school [8th grade] in
the U.S. system. Second grade is roughly equivalent to high
school completion.) Participants receive a grant to cover
their costs of moving to town for the months of January and
February. The SEC supplies all the necessary books and
materials and awards a certificate to the teacher upon course
completion6. Additionally, the SEC has monthly "Pedagogy
Meetings" for rural teachers and a new training course for
teachers of classes with more than one grade level.
Since only a third of the Projeto Seringueiro monitors
have ever participated in the LOGOS courses, Projeto
Seringueiro staff encouraged all the monitors to enroll in
the January-February 1989 LOGOS so that they would get the
state certificate and therefore be eligible for higher
contract salaries. However, after several meetings, the
66
monitors decided not to participate in the LOGOS course. They
preferred to have a very intensive Projeto Seringueiro
training session instead. The monitors asked to have a two-
month session consisting of day and evening classes to prepare
them in the critical thinking skills with which they could
more effectively participate in next year's LOGOS course4
Almost all of the PS monitors have participated in at
least one of the Projeto's training sessions. According to
the Xapuri coordinator for the Projeto, the staff designs the
sessions to be symbiotic experiences wherein everyone learns.
The sessions do not function on what Freire calls the "banking
system" in which the trainers hold a store of knowledge which
they impart to the monitors. Rather, the trainers teach and
learn at the same time.
These training sessions usually consist of two
activities. The first subject is the Projeto Seringueiro and
how it grew out of the rubber tapper movement. The trainers
and the monitors who have participated in previous training
sessions explore the concept of the Projeto schools with the
new monitors. Together they discuss questions such as the
differences between Projeto Seringueiro and government schools
and how the Projeto schools fit into the whole movement of
unionization, mobilization and conservation. The key is the
development of a critical sense of the rubber tappers and of
the community. Through the use of literacy and application
of this critical sense, the community and the rubber tappers
67
reinforce their own movement by encouraging participation in
the union and other activities4.
From there the training moves into the actual content of
the PORONGA books. Now the monitors learn to master the
materials and the didactic techniques of how to teach4
Sometimes a representative from CEDI is invited to attend
these sessions and offer assistance to the monitors (Projeto
Seringueiro 1986).
Since 1983, three training sessions have been held in
the urban centers of Rio Branco and Xapuri1. In 1987, Projeto
Seringueiro staff visited all of the newer schools for 7-15
days each, working with the monitors, observing the activities
and holding training sessions in the seringal3 (Projeto
Seringueiro 1987b). In October of 1987, eleven monitors met
with Projeto Seringueiro, CTA and CNS representatives to
evaluate the schools and their relations to the community and
to the rubber tapper movement. A 40-day training session for
the Projeto's 54 monitors was held in May of 1989 in Rio
Branco (Araripe 1989).
The Future for the Proieto Serinqueiro
The serinqueiros' demands for new schools combined with
the burden of administering the existing schools on slim
financial resources placed an almost unmanageable stress on
the Projeto's three staff members by the fall of 1988. At
that time, Projeto staff members identified a three-pronged
68
agenda for the future of their program. I discuss each of
these in turn.
Improving the Community Level of Organization
Due in part to the immensely rapid growth of the Projeto,
there have been many problems with the relation of the PS to
the communities in the serincal. While the communities of
serinqueiros have a legitimate desire to create a Projeto
school in their locale, the Projeto staff is concerned with
maintaining the quality of instruction as the number of
schools expands. There are sufficient government textbooks
to supply the new schools that the tappers are almost
spontaneously building, but the resources to train new
monitors and create educational materials are already strained
at the current operating level.
Monitor selection and the quality of monitor training is
a key element in assuring that the schools continue to be
actively involved in the rubber tappers' movement. Monitors
must walk a fine line between being a teacher and being a
militant or activist in the unionization. Students,
community members and fellow monitors often complained about
classes being cancelled or a lack of community meetings in the
seringal because the monitor was too busy in town with the
church, the Partido dos Trabalhadores or the union. On the
other hand, complaints arise from the same sectors when
monitors fail to participate in empates or other union events.
69
One monitor complained that when one of her peers goes into
Xapuri to pick up his SEC paycheck, he doesn't even go by the
union or CTA offices, which are the "heart" of the movement.
The Xapuri coordinator of the Projeto stated,
Suddenly the schools of the Projeto and the monitors are
beginning to assimilate to decontextualize out of the
movement, away from the fight, the struggle to preserve
the forest and the serinaal. Some [monitors] are
starting to identify with the "professor" of the city.
The monitors in the Projeto Seringueiro can't look for
employment as a teacher only. It's a service to the
community to join in the fight and for some monitors,
especially the new ones, the first thing they want to
know is what they are going to receive, what will they
gain. It takes away from the spirit of the movement -
from the mutirdo of the community.4 [translation mine]
To address this problem in part, the monitors have
formed a council to deal with the relationship between
the school and the community. On the council are five
monitors elected by their peers, a Conselho Nacional dos
Seringueiros (CNS) representative and a STR-Xapuri
representative. Council members are responsible for
making regular and independent visits to the schools to
determine any difficulties in the use of the educational
materials and to determine the relations of the community
to the school. The council will establish criteria for
the schools and meet with the Projeto staff.
Problems in Pedagoqy and Materials Development
According to the Xapuri coordinator of the Projeto,
the largest and most urgent challenge facing the Projeto
70
is the lack of personnel trained in pedagogy4. The
Projeto urgently wants educational materials designed for
children which will take them up through the fourth
series (roughly equivalent to sixth grade in the U.S.
educational system) In October of 1988, a five member
team began researching the Projeto and designing new
educational materials. The team will also define
standards for monitor selection and training as well as
evaluation criteria3. The design for the integrated
educational materials to be created by the team will go
into a proposal for the SEC and CEE (Conselho Estadual
de Educagao). This curriculum will introduce the
serinaueiros to other lifestyles while at the same time
positively reinforcing the tappers' way of life2. FUNTAC
and the SEC are supporting the teams' salaries and plan
to use the new curriculum in the schools of the
extractive reserves. The Projeto Seringueiro will employ
these materials in all of its schools, both within and
outside of the extractive reserves.
Organization of the Projeto and Financial Support
One of the many reasons that the Projeto staff
members have been unable to develop these new materials
on their own was a lack of training in pedagogy. In
September of 1988, none of the three staff members had
such training. Their main goals are to make the Projeto
71
more professional in part by hiring staff specialists in
pedagogy. This of course takes money, which is sorely
lacking. While secretarial support will be available
starting in 1989, the financial and personnel resources
of the Projeto in the fall of 1988 were grossly
inadequate to manage the project and maintain the quality
of its first schools. With the financial and
institutional interests of FUNTAC and SEC via the
extractive reserves, combined with potential assistance
from the Canadian embassy, Oxfam-UK and CESE, it appears
that the Projeto Seringueiro may be able to gain the
resources it needs to sustain and improve its educational
program.
72
I will discuss the subject of the Projeto
Seringueiro's collaboration with FUNTAC and the Projeto's
role in the extractive reserves in more detail in Chapter
IV.
Notes
1 Field interview with the President of the Sindicato
dos Trabalhadores Rurais-Xapuri. Xapuri, Acre.
2 Field interview with CTA staff. Xapuri, Acre.
3 Field interview with CTA staff. Rio Branco, Acre.
4 Field interview with the Xapuri coordinator of the
Projeto Seringueiro. Xapuri, Acre.
5 Field interview with the Educational Inspector of
Xapuri; Secretary of Education and Culture. Xapuri,
Acre.
6 Field interview with the Coordinator of Education
for the Rural Zone; Secretary of Education and
Culture. Rio Branco, Acre.
7 Field interview with the Research Director; FUNTAC.
Rio Branco, Acre.
8 Field interview with staff of the Secretary of
Education and Culture. Rio Branco, Acre.
CHAPTER III
THE IMPACT OF THE PROJETO SERINGUEIRO SCHOOLS ON LIFE IN THE
SERINGAL
Introduction
In this chapter I discuss the results of my interviews
with rubber tapping families in the seringal. I interviewed
24 families in four different study areas in order to measure
the impact of the Projeto Seringueiro and government schools
on life in the rain forest. Through questionnaires and semi-
structured interviews, I examined the impact of the presence
and type of school on the following five variables : (1)
rural-urban migration (2) self-reported literacy skills, (3)
political participation, (4) natural resource use [techniques
used in cutting rubber and hunting], and, (5) marketing
tactics. Each of these five variables in part indicates the
Projeto's objectives in establishing its schools (Allegretti
1981; PS 1987a). The holistic approach of the Projeto
Seringueiro reflects the rubber tappers' desire to create a
learning environment which would expose them to opportunities
to gain much more than basic literacy skills. They wanted to
give value to the rubber tappers' way of life and create a
CHAPTER III
THE IMPACT OF THE PROJETO SERINGUEIRO SCHOOLS ON LIFE IN THE
SERINGAL
Introduction
In this chapter I discuss the results of my interviews
with rubber tapping families in the seringal. I interviewed
24 families in four different study areas in order to measure
the impact of the Projeto Seringueiro and government schools
on life in the rain forest. Through questionnaires and semi-
structured interviews, I examined the impact of the presence
and type of school on the following five variables : (1)
rural-urban migration (2) self-reported literacy skills, (3)
political participation, (4) natural resource use [techniques
used in cutting rubber and hunting], and, (5) marketing
tactics. Each of these five variables in part indicates the
Projeto's objectives in establishing its schools (Allegretti
1981; PS 1987a). The holistic approach of the Projeto
Seringueiro reflects the rubber tappers' desire to create a
learning environment which would expose them to opportunities
to gain much more than basic literacy skills. They wanted to
give value to the rubber tappers' way of life and create a
74
politically active community dedicated to preserving its
culture and its environment (PS 1987a). I selected my five
variables based on these goals of the Projeto not only to
allow me to assess the impact of the Projeto's program, but
also to carry out research that would be of use and interest
to the Projeto and the serinaueiros.
I will discuss each of these five variables in turn in
the following sections. To facilitate the reader's
recollection of the four study areas described in Chapter I,
I have summarized their main characteristics in Table 3-1.
Table 3-1: Description of Interview Sites
AREA SERINGAL UNION SCHOOL COOP LAND
ACTIVITY HISTORY TENURE
(no. of years/ (type/no.
municipality) of years)
I Floresta 11 PS / 5 Yes Posseiro
& Boa Vista Xapuri rights
II Remanso 1 govt / 5 No 20 year
Rio Branco contract
III Remanso 1 None No 20 year
Xapuri contract
IV Alcobras 0 None No Posseiro
Rio Branco rights
111/111111111//////1/1///111/1/11/1/1111111/11111111111//
Rural to Urban Migration
In the present study, families averaged eight members
and had lived on the same tract within the serinqal for an
average of 10.2 years. The total population of these 24
families was 194 people. Over 98% of the study population
was born in Acre and 94% was born in the seringal. The only
people surveyed who were not born in Acre migrated from their
birthplace of Ceara 25 years ago.
MIRAD technicians surveyed the entire seringal of Sao
Luis do Remanso in 1987 in preparation for making this area
a colonization project. I will refer to their data which
FUNTAC is using as it designs its research and community
development programs for the Remanso extractive reserve. The
MIRAD data indicate that fot the Remanso seringal (which
includes my study Areas II ahd III), 82% of the population
was Acrean, 6% came from the state of Amazonas, 2% from the
state of Ceara and the remaining 7% are from various other
Brazilian states (FUNTAC 1988).
Rural to urban migration within the state of Acre has
intensified since the early 1970s as ranching enterprises
moved into the state, forcing extractive workers to move to
Rio Branco because of land concentration and unemployment
(Bakx 1986; Bakx 1987a; Nunes da Silva 1986). However, I
found in my study that while migration internal to the
seringal is fairly common (families trading colocac6es or
teenagers-young adults residing with neighbors), cases of
76
migration from the seringal to the urban areas were infrequent
in the four study areas.
Only two families in the survey population had ever left
the seringal and moved to Rio Branco. One family returned to
the seringal after living in the city for one year. They had
found it very difficult to secure sufficient employment,
especially since they were hindered by poor literacy skills.
With assistance from the STR-Xapuri and fellow serinqueiros,
they moved back to the seringal. Union leaders made clear
mention of this family's situation at community meetings as
an example of the hard realities of life in the city. After
several months back in the serinaal, this family stated that
they were much better off than they had been in the city due
to the supportive community, the Projeto school, the
cooperative and the health post near their colocacao.
The other family in my study survey with rural-urban
experiences had lived in Rio Branco for 19 years and then
returned to the seringal Remanso (Study Area II). The father
of the family stated, "I did construction work. We had a
house, running water, everything. But we made barely enough
to eat. So I decided to move back to the seringal." While
this family also stated that they were better off in the
seringal than in Rio Branco, they did not have all the
community benefits of the family mentioned above. This family
lived in the Remanso extractive reserve and was assisting in
the construction of a new school. The father was quite
77
interested in joining the STR-Xapuri (even though they resided
in the municipality of Rio Branco). At the time of my visit
with them, this family's eldest daughter was currently
residing in Xapuri to attend school. She had left the
serinaal after becoming frustrated with the low level of
instruction and the lack of materials at the government school
near their home. Both she and her family looked forward to
having a new school so that she could return to live with her
family while continuing to study.
Although only two families in my study had moved to urban
areas, there were many cases of individuals residing
temporarily in the local towns and villages, primarily to
attend school. While the average household size in the study
population was 7.7 persons, the average number of people
actually residing at the house was 6.1 persons due to some
family members living in the urban areas or in other parts of
the seringal. Family members living outside of the home were
either studying or working in the urban areas or working on
another colocacAo or cattle ranch.
Education was the primary motive for temporary migration
to the urban areas while employment was secondary. A total
of five families in my study was supporting 16 children and
adults who had moved either to the village of Capixaba, Xapuri
or Rio Branco to study. In other words, 21% of the families
interviewed had offspring temporarily residing in urban areas
to gain access to education. These urban students constitute
78
10% of the survey population. The remainder of the population
living outside of the family home consisted of 14 persons from
seven families working in the urban areas (or residing there
to take care of their children while they studied) and 12
persons working elsewhere as rubber tappers. One family
stated that they had "lost" their eldest son. He was employed
as a laborer on a nearby cattle ranch.
The Projeto Seringueiro created its schools in part to
provide infrastructure which would deter rural to urban
migration from the serincal (PS 1987a). Through my interviews
I found that the schools are doing just that, although it at
first appears that the PS school and the government school are
similar in this regard. The families in Area I (served by the
Projeto) had a total of two students attending urban classes
while Area II had only one. While it may seem that each
school is equally effective in keeping students in the
seringal, the fact is that participation levels are
significantly different. Since they were frustrated with the
teachers' low level of training and the poor quality of
textbooks and the schoolbuilding at the government school,
children and adults in Area II simply chose not to study
rather than move to the urban areas to do'so.
79
At the first meeting called in Area II (Remanso) by
FUNTAC and STR-Xapuri to discuss the location of the new
school (which would take the place of the existing SEC-
sponsored school), the serinqueiros took a head count of all
potential students living within walking distance of the
future school site. The serinqueiros counted 24 school-age
children and 28 adults living within an hour and a half walk
of the proposed site. The school could therefore
theoretically serve 52 students from the nearby population.
However, the current enrollment at the existing government
school was only seven children.
Both the Projeto schools in Area I and this government
school were accessible to similar numbers of families.
However, an average of 25 adult and children students
participated in each Projeto school compared with the seven
young students who were attending the government school in
Area II. This school had previously offered adult classes
but they lasted only a year. According to the teacher, the
adult students found it too difficult to study in the evenings
after working all day. According to the community members,
most of the adult students stopped attending after becoming
frustrated with the teacher's inadequate training. O n e
reason why the residents of Area II who chose not to
participate in the school did not move either temporarily or
permanently to an urban area to gain access to education was
the fact that a new school was soon to be constructed in the
80
seringal. These people had heard of the Projeto Seringueiro
schools in the Xapuri area, so when their seringal was
declared an extractive reserve, the community's first request
to FUNTAC was for a new school and textbooks such as those of
the Projeto.
In Area III (which lacked any type of school), thirteen
people were residing in the urban areas to study. Rubber
tappers in this area had started meeting with FUNTAC and STR-
Xapuri representatives in the summer of 1988 to discuss the
construction of a school. Several community members indicated
that they had refrained from attending the urban schools since
plans were underway to construct a new facility in the
seringal. In all three of these areas, the presence of a
Projeto Seringueiro school or the anticipation of having such
a school in the community deterred residents from moving to
the urban areas to seek educational opportunities.
Self-Reported Literacy Skills
The Projeto schools now serve a total of 600 students,
roughly 60% of whom are 15 years old or younger While some
of the schools can offer instruction up to the 4th series
level (depending on the monitor's level of training and
education) others are prepared to only offer basic literacy
skills. As was discussed in Chapter II, the Projeto is
81
working with FUNTAC and the SEC to develop a new materials
for those advanced students who have already mastered the
PORONGA notebook.
Not only do the Projeto schools have difficulty in
addressing the needs of the seringueiros, but rural schools
on the whole are strapped for resources including adequate
teacher training. While most rural teachers contracted by
the state have passed first grade2, many others have just
gained basic literacy skills themselves and are now trying to
teach others how to read and write3. Inadequate training,
combined with having up to 45 students at different
educational levels in one room, make for an extremely
difficult situation for rural teachers3
Due to the informality of the educational schedule in
both the Projeto and SEC rural schools (students are not
instructed at specific grade levels), I chose not to measure
the seringueiros' literacy and numeracy skills based on the
number of years an informant had attended school. Instead,
I inquired in a more pragmatic fashion, using the following
categories of informants' skills: (1) no literacy skills, (2)
able to write their name, (3) able to read and write a little
(basic literacy) and, (4) able to confidently read a newspaper
and write a simple letter.
Math skills were a specialization in the seringal. Very
few of the informants (only those who gave response #4 on the
literacy question) indicated that they could perform addition
and subtraction with confidence.
Illiteracy rates for the study areas are shown in Table
3-2. The illiteracy rate for the study population was 55%
for persons over 15 years of age. By gender, illiteracy rates
were 52% for adult males and 59% for adult females. A
previous study in the serinqais of Acre found an adult
literacy rate of 31% (Sorensen 1989). These figures compare
to national literacy rates in 1985 of 80% and 78% for adult
males and females respectively (Medici 1987).
Although Areas I and II each have had a school for the
same length of time, the adult literacy skill levels vary
greatly, especially among the male population as shown in
Table 3.2.
Table 3-2: Adult
Illiteracy Rates
Adult
Illiteracy Rates (%)
Area Male Female
I 20 50
II 75 40
III 83 80
IV 87 100
I
83
As I discussed in Chapter II, the female participation
level was very low in the Projeto schools. Almost invariably,
the women in Areas I and II who had studied in a school
indicated that they had done so when they were teenagers and
had lived either in Xapuri or Rio Branco to study. This
accounts for the similar illiteracy rates for these women.
Although these women did not study in the seringal, their
experience with education may have played a significant role
in stimulating the creation of a school in their respective
serincais. Note that the illiteracy rate for the adult
females in Areas III and IV is much higher and that there has
never been a school in these areas. This suggests that a
community's interest in building a school in the serinaal is
catalyzed by the educational experiences of its members.
Note that in Area I the male adult illiteracy level is
20% while in Area II it is 75%. While both communities
constructed their schools with the intention of having adult
classes, the Projeto specifically designed its curriculum,
schedule and other community-supported activities to ensure
that adults would actively participate and retain their
interest in the school. As mentioned earlier, the government
school in Area II was only able to maintain adult classes for
a short while due to a lack of interest. The textbooks and
the teacher's training proved to be inadequate for the task
of adult education and the students stopped attending the
classes.
84
Area III and possibly Area IV (which hopefully will be
included within the service area of the Remanso reserve) are
soon to have their own schools, built by the community with
assistance from FUNTAC and STR-Xapuri.
Political Participation
Aside from sustaining the initial cooperatives with adult
literacy and numeracy training, another of the Projeto's
objectives in its popular education program was to strengthen
the seringueiros' mobilization by reinforcing the value of the
rubber tappers' culture and their role as extractive producers
within the community (Projeto Seringueiro 1987). Through
discussions of the importance of the natural environment and
its conservation, during class sessions and meeting times, the
Projeto hoped to create an atmosphere in which the rubber
tappers could critically explore their role in political
organizations that could further their conservation efforts.
The vocabulary words of the PORONGA notebook stimulate
such discussions. The students not only learn how to read
and write words relating to the sindicato (union) and the
cooperative (cooperative) but at the same time explore with
their peers the rights that they have to participate in such
organizations. The school also provides practical assistance
for the tappers during election time by helping serinqueiros
who encounter difficulties in registering to vote either
because of literacy or documentation problems.
85
In order to measure the impact of the Projeto on the
serinqueiros' political participation, I asked the rubber
tappers in each area whether or not they were members in the
local chapter of the STR or in a political party. As would be
expected, union membership was highest in Area I where the
STR-Xapuri has been actively mobilizing the community for over
a decade. Over 80% of the households in this area had a union
member. The average union membership by household in the
other three study areas was 50%. The MIRAD team found that
35% of the Remanso population were union members in 1987
(FUNTAC 1988).
Membership in the STR-Xapuri union is bound to increase
in Areas II and III where the union representatives are
working closely with FUNTAC to initially mobilize these
communities for school construction. At the meetings held
during the summer of 1988, many of the serinqueiros in both
communities expressed a strong desire to join the union.
Those tappers whose colocac6es lay within the municipality of
Rio Branco inquired as to whether they could join the Xapuri
chapter even though as residents of Rio Branco they would
normally have joined that municipality's chapter. Due to the
mobilization work that the STR-Xapuri and CNS representatives
did in Remanso to turn the plans for the area from a
colonization project to an extractive reserve, the
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serincueiros in Areas II and III indicated that they wanted
to increase their participation (and receive the additional
benefits) as union members.
While the difference between an 80% membership level in
Area I and an average 50% level in the other three areas is
significant, one also sees a clear distinction between the
active participation of members in their respective unions.
Areas II and IV are all within the Rio Branco municipality
and only a few of the colocac6es of Area III are Xapuriense.
Those tappers in these three areas who hold union membership
are in the STR-Rio Branco which operates quite differently
from its Xapuri counterpart. According to the serinqueiros,
the STR-Rio Branco representatives only come into the serincal
at election time and to collect dues. They offer no services
or support for their members. One tapper commented that he
had been an STR-Rio Branco member for six years. He finally
stopped paying dues a year and a half ago because the union
had never even had a meeting in the seringal and he saw no
benefit from his dues payment.
As discussed in Chapter II, the serinqueiros in Areas II
and III were very active and consistent participants in the
meetings and work days scheduled by the STR-Xapuri and FUNTAC.
The important factor between the membership levels in Area I
versus those of the other three areas lies not in membership
per se but rather in active participation. Since there were
no STR-Rio Branco meetings that the tappers could have
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