Evaluation of an educational project in Northeastern Brazil

(please refer to the Terms of Reference for all relevant information)

horizont3000 is an Austrian non-governmental organization (NGO) formed by 11 grassroots Catholic Church organizations. It focuses on development cooperation, working with nearly 100 partner organizations across Africa and Latin America. The organization’s core areas of focus include Human Rights & Civil Society and Sustainable Livelihoods, with special emphasis on Gender Equality, Climate Action, and Policy Dialogue.

We are seeking a consultancy team to evaluate the “Education for Sustainability: Rural Schools, Children’s Rights and Citizenship at Bahia” project in Brazil. This project is implemented by Movimento de Organização Comunitária (MOC) and supported by our partner Crossing Borders (CB).

Crossing Borders (CB) operates as an independent, licensed charity in Austria since 2011. The goal of CB is to bring about a lasting and self-perpetuating change by empowering children to live better, more independent lives. At the same time, CB sees education as a key to improve conditions for families and whole communities. In 2024, CB supported 48 projects in 25 countries with a total of approximately € 1,1 Mio.

Movimento de Organização Comunitária (MOC) is a Brazilian non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Feira de Santana, Bahia, established in 1967. MOC operates primarily in the semi-arid region of Bahia, with a focus on improving the living conditions of vulnerable communities through sustainable development, social inclusion, and citizenship promotion. The organization has a strong track record of working in education, rural development, economic solidarity, food security, gender equality, and children’s rights.

In the education sector, MOC implements initiatives to strengthen the capacity of teachers, improve educational infrastructure, and promote inclusive education for marginalized groups, such as children in rural areas and those from low-income families. By partnering with local governments, schools, and communities, MOC enhances the educational outcomes of children through projects that promote sustainable learning environments and equitable access to education.

The project Education for sustainability – rural schools, children’s rights and citizenship at Bahia has secured the support of the nine participating municipalities, who are committed to implementing improvements based on the project’s findings and approaches. Their collaboration aims to enhance teacher training, contextualize rural education, improve rural school infrastructure and promote children’s rights, ultimately fostering a more equitable and empowered community.

Another key element is the promotion of an organized civil society to advocate for quality education and hold local authorities to account, ensuring sustainable improvements in the education landscape. In Brazil, according to the legislation, rural education must be carried out jointly with civil society, who are the main subjects in the countryside.

The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the expansion of knowledge, sensitivities, and skills of teachers, coordinators, school managers and civil society for access, defense, promotion and social control in the maintenance of public policies about rural education as a human right of children, adolescents, and their families, in eight municipalities of Bahia’s Semiarid Region.

The project will also seek in the long term to prevent the interruption of children’s studies, rural migration, child labor, closing rural schools, removing the rights of children and young people.

Key outcomes of the project include:

Specific Objective 1: Contribute to processes of continuous formation of subjects with duties (educators, coordinators, school managers, rights counselors, tutelary counselors, and education counselors) aiming at guaranteeing rights and developing a quality contextualized education from the perspective of coexistence with the Semiarid and Sustainability

Specific Objective 2: Promote spaces of playfulness and assessment of multiple learning with children and adolescents from rural schools

Specific Objective 3: Sensitize and mobilize civil society, including children’s families, to make social control of the public policies of children’s rights and contextualized rural education

Target group(s):

Direct beneficiaries: 6.705 children

Indirect beneficiaries: their family members – 6.800

The evaluation will take place between December 2024 and April 2025. The final evaluation report is expected by Ends of April, 2025.