BBC showcases the success of young inmates in the OBMEP (Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad for Public Schools).

Foto: DIEGO PADGURSCHI/BBC

This report, published on the BBC Brazil website, showed the study routine for the second phase of the Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad for Public Schools (OBMEP) for young people serving socio-educational measures in São Paulo. Reporter Letícia Mori spoke with three inmates from the Fundação Centro de Atendimento Socioeducativo ao Adolescente (Fundação CASA/SP), who talked about their satisfaction and surprise at having qualified and about the challenges of returning to their studies.

Young Vanessa*, who loves solving problems, said that the recognition in the exam is an incentive to continue studying and enter university. She intends to study civil engineering or social work. "Since I've already passed the exam at a shelter, I think the work they (the social workers) do is very beautiful. I remember Uncle Moacir very well, who, when I was sad, would talk to me, did everything so that I wouldn't leave the shelter, so that I wouldn't end up on the street," she said.

*The teenagers' names have been changed to protect their identities.

Check out the full report:

The juvenile offenders who shine at the Mathematics Olympiad.
September 17, 2019

Vanessa*, 18 years old, was one of the 18 million Brazilian students who participated in the first phase of the Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad for Public Schools (OBMEP) this year. But, unlike most of the other competitors, she did not take the test at school.

The young woman took the test in a room with a blackboard and desks, but which had bars on the small, high windows and a door that was usually locked with a padlock.

She wasn't wearing a school uniform either, but flip-flops and the mandatory khaki outfit for children and adolescents delinquent in the Fundação Casa, an institution in São Paulo, where she has been for 5 months.

Vanessa always loved math, but since she hadn't studied for two years when she was hospitalized, she didn't imagine she would do well on the test.

When the teacher congratulated her the following month, saying that she had passed to the second phase of the Olympiad, surpassing thousands of students who were not deprived of their freedom, she thought they had confused her birth month.

"I didn't think I would pass. It was difficult for me because I didn't remember much of the material."

Vanessa, a first-year high school student, returned to her studies at Fundação Casa. She had left school in 2017, but her studies were interrupted several times throughout her life—she even lived on the streets and in shelters on several occasions.

Few visits
At the Chiquinha Gonzaga Unit, she doesn't receive many visitors, which is common among the 103 teenage girls interned there. Just like in prisons for adult women, the girls interned at Fundação Casa receive fewer visits than the boys.

In the unit's small library, she tells BBC News Brazil that her mother died of cancer when she was 5 years old and her father was arrested for drug trafficking when she was 9.

During the six years her father was imprisoned, she lived with her brother, but the two spent "more time on the street than at home."

"I enjoyed studying, but it was difficult with my family. My brother has mental health issues, and I didn't have much encouragement."

At age 12, Vanessa started using drugs and dropped out of school. Then she left home. She ended up living in shelters, but had difficulty staying because drug use is prohibited in those places. She eventually ended up living on the streets with other children in downtown São Paulo.

"I wasn't starving because I asked for food. But we get very cold, and when it rains it's very difficult to find a place to sleep."

She went back to school when her father was released from prison and she was able to move back in with him in the northern part of São Paulo. She started taking supplementary courses to complete high school. But living with her father wasn't easy, says Vanessa, and it didn't take long for her life to go off track again.

"I met a boy from a shelter and he invited me to stay with him at the shelter. But I argued with him, the others invited me to go steal, I went to steal and I got arrested," she says, who was 17 years old at the time.

"Now, I'm realizing that the life I had wasn't for me. That I can study, I can work. That I don't need to be on the streets using drugs."

Back to school
Having used various drugs since childhood, she experienced severe withdrawal symptoms during her first months in the hospital, but with medication and follow-up care at the Psychosocial Care Centers (CAPS), she says the symptoms have subsided.

With this, she was able to resume her classes, which are held every morning at the detention center. In the afternoon she has other activities, such as participating in the choir.

Success in the first phase of the Olympics was not only a surprise, but an incentive for Vanessa to continue her studies and go to college. She wants to study civil engineering or social work.

"Having been in a shelter myself, I think the work they (the social workers) do is very beautiful. I remember Uncle Moacir very well; when I was sad, he would talk to me and do everything he could to keep me from leaving the shelter, to keep me from ending up on the streets."

Now, she's preparing for the second phase — she says she loves solving problems like Bhaskara's formula (used to solve quadratic equations, she explains) — which will be on September 28th.

The Olympiad was created in 2005 and its objective is to stimulate the study of the discipline and identify talent in the area, encouraging students to enter university in the fields of science and technology.

Just one more proof
A few kilometers away, at the Rio Tâmisa male unit of the Fundação Casa, 17-year-old Aurélio* is also preparing for the second phase of the Mathematics Olympiad.

Students from the 6th grade of elementary school to the final year of high school participate in the competition; 54,831 schools participated. The second phase exam will be on September 28th. The best performances will be awarded gold, silver, and bronze medals – hundreds of them are distributed each year.

The unit where Aurélio is interned looks much more like a prison. He took the Olympiad exam without knowing it: he thought it was just another bimonthly exam for the 7th grade of elementary school, which he has returned to since being admitted to the institution.

Aurélio has worked as a bricklayer's assistant since he was 15, and lived with his four siblings, his mother, and his stepfather in the northern part of São Paulo. He attended night classes to try to make up for the years of school he missed due to absences, but sometimes he was too tired and ended up not being able to go.

"Since he was 10, he dreamed of owning a motorcycle," he says, "because he really liked the adrenaline." But he never managed to buy one with his salary, and admits that he ended up not following his family's advice to "stay away from bad friends and look for better things."

"I was with a friend and we saw a motorcycle and went to steal it. And then we were almost home when the police showed up," he admits. "It was very sad, my mother was devastated."

As is more common for boys than for girls, Aurélio receives frequent visits from his family – his mother, godmother, stepfather, and father.

He was very happy to find out that he had passed to the second phase of the Olympiad and says that this is a great incentive to continue studying. "We were playing dominoes when the teacher came and said that I had gotten the three best grades in the house."

Expectations
Aurélio says he wants to take a vocational course when he leaves the institution. "Get a job, build something for myself. Buy a motorcycle that's truly mine, you know?"

The surprise at achieving good results in the Mathematics Olympiad is a common trait among all six juvenile offenders who spoke with BBC News Brazil.

"This issue of self-esteem is a very difficult one and a central point to work on, because often they don't think they are capable of good things," says Priscilla Iris Jerônimo, director of Casa Rio Tâmisa.

Aline*, 17 years old, took the test with Vanessa at Casa Chiquinha Gonzaga. Among the students who excelled in the first phase, she was the one who had the most difficulty with the subject.

But she is hardworking – in addition to her regular morning classes, she takes extra classes in the afternoon and was the last to leave the room on the day of the test. "Everyone was leaving, and I was still halfway through, but I didn't want to guess," she says, who had left school last year and resumed classes when she was admitted to the institution in February of this year.

"In my class (at school) nobody cared about school, and I ended up making the wrong friends, I lied to my mother saying I was in class when I wasn't," she says, who lived in a community with her family in the interior of São Paulo.

With seven siblings and her mother caring for her younger sister, the family income was meager. Aline realized she could earn some money by doing what her friends did, selling drugs in the community.

Mistakes and successes
Aline was out of school and away from home for almost a year, living with friends – her mother didn't know where she was. "She was desperately looking for me."

"I started trafficking and that's how I ended up here," he says. "At first it wasn't bad, when you start, you get to know a drug, you think it's the popular one at school. Then I saw that it wasn't quite like that," he reflects.

"Before, I used to tell my mother that I wanted to be 17 so I could work, and now I'm 17 and I'm deprived of my freedom."

"It was very difficult, because no one in my family taught me this wrong way of life. But no one put a gun to my head and forced me either; I went of my own free will. Later I realized that I was wrong, that this life wasn't for me," she says.

During her hospitalization, she began taking several vocational courses at Senac — such as waitress and telephone customer service — and intends to finish them when she is released.

When she graduates, she says, she wants to get her first job at a snack bar so she can go to college to study mathematics. "And then I want to become a teacher."

Aline says she's eager to tell her mother that she qualified for the Olympics. "I think she'll be happy, because she always says on the phone, 'daughter, study hard, your mother wants to see you working, with a good life, because this life isn't for anyone.'"

"I thought my mother would never forgive me. But she did."

*The teenagers' names have been changed to protect their identities.