132 speech at the Rotary Building opening ceremony , that action went far beyond the Colégio, as a highly relevant social and educational work was being undertaken at Lar Escola Rotary, where the number of beneficiaries was growing remarkably: “At the 24-km marker on Via Raposo Tavares is also our institution, providing assistance to around 500 children, as well as education and a useful occupation for the children of that farming area, so that they could not only improve their standard of living, but also teach their parents to acquire more accurate knowledge of the modern rural life.” The brothers Niso and Genuino Vianna had ceased to be involved in the administration by the end of the 1950s, considering it well-established. However, the purposes for which they created the institution were upheld, and it gained new momentum with the construction of new buildings and the growing number of students. Other Rotary Clubs that were being formed in São Paulo made valuable contributions, which were amplified by the creation of a patronage system—an idea by Ignácio Abdulkader, of Rotary Club de São Paulo - Sul, whereby one or more students had their education defrayed by a Rotarian. “The children were very well cared for. They were given all necessary assistance in terms of medical and dental care. There was a dentist’s office and small outpatient clinic. There were wholesome meals. They were even offered psychological guidance,” Nórton Batista reports. The neighborhood had changed and urbanized over the years, gradually losing its rural features. The priority given to teaching techniques for agricultural activities and for raising small animals, which had been established at the beginning of Lar Escola Rotary’s activities, no longer made so much sense. To meet the new demands, the range of courses provided was expanded to include Tailoring and Sewing, Hairstyling, Manicuring, Graphic Arts, Bookbinding, Carpentry, Painting, Pottery, and Knitting. Obviously, there was nothing rural about the occupations to which those activities related. Those changes, combined with an increase in population, posed a new challenge to Lar Escola Rotary: the construction of a primary school with large capacity. To that end, however, the State’s involvement was indispensable, as there were no sufficient funds for yet another undertaking like that. The negotiations that followed would be established in a near future. Culture prized Providing a humanistic education and prizing culture are principles that have been cherished from the start of Fundação de Rotarianos de São Paulo’s activities as core elements in the personal and social development of its students. Accordingly, activities such as reading, theater, music and overall artistic development have always been encouraged in the day-to-day life at the institutions it maintains. A remarkable example of that is Colégio Rio Branco’s library, which is currently known by the name of Primo Páscoli Melaré. Founded in 1948 by teacher João Batista Damasco Penna, it has always been recognized for its great structure and the quality of its collection and services, which were later extended to the libraries of the Granja Vianna Unit and Faculdades Integradas Rio Branco. Promoting such activities as story-telling, discussions with authors, exhibitions of photos and objects, poetry soirées and many others, the cultural role it plays goes beyond the traditional concept of library. An example of the impact of that strategy of valuing the library and encouraging reading can be seen in Ruth Rocha, a former student who went on to work as a student guidance counselor at the Colégio and is currently known as a leading Brazilian author of books for child and adolescent readers. In 2014 in an interview to Folha de S. Paulo newspaper, she said, “I think I read the entire library at the Colégio, where I was a student, and then a collaborator later on.” That same care for providing access to information and complementary activities was replicated at the Faculdades, where the library had, from the outset, modern resources to make it a place of great attraction for students and meet their academic research and other demands stemming from their cultural curiosity. Theater is another realm in which the Colégio has a rich history. The Rio Branco Theater Group, created in 1986, has a strong tradition and prestige, having staged more than 100 plays over the years. However, the encouragement of that activity long precedes that structured group. For example, actor Antonio Fagundes described, as part of the Memória Globo project, his early experiences on stage in 1963, back when he was a student at the Colégio and had a part in the play “A Ceia dos
Livro Comemorativo dos 70 anos da Fundação de Rotarianos de São Paulo - Uma história de ideias e ideais
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