MOI breaks borders and reaches the first municipal network outside Rio

IMPA’s Olympic Girls (MOI) takes a historic step in its trajectory of encouraging female participation in the exact sciences: the project will be implemented, for the first time, in a municipal network outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. The Miguel Nunes Municipal School, in São Francisco de Itabapoana, in the North of Rio de Janeiro, is the first to join the initiative.

The partnership was formalized this Wednesday (15), in a meeting at IMPA, and marks the beginning of the expansion of the program. Soon, a public notice will be launched so that other municipal networks can apply for the implementation of the MOI.

“The signing of this agreement begins an important evolution in the way IMPA’s Olympic Girls works with the opening, soon, to a much broader participation of public schools. The objective is to further expand the success of the project in promoting the female presence in exact sciences and technology careers”, explained Marcelo Viana, general director of IMPA.

Initially, about ten students from the Fridays to the 9th grade of the Miguel Nunes Municipal School will participate in the project, accompanied at a distance by the MOI team, coordinated by teacher Letícia Rangel.

“Seeing the MOI moving forward is important, it’s exciting. We are breaking boundaries, the MOI is growing. This is challenging and also very rewarding”, said Letícia Rangel.

For Gustavo Terra, secretary of education of the municipality of São Francisco de Itabapoana, the arrival of the MOI has great potential to transform the academic training of young people in the city. “We really liked this project because we saw in it the opportunity to plant the seed of the degree in mathematics in our students from the municipal network. I’m confident that it will be a success. The idea is to advance, strengthen, increase and in the future we will have more people trained in mathematics”, he explained.

In addition, joining the MOI comes as a complement to the comprehensive education, already implemented by the school. Another goal is to encourage girls in the STEM field. “Our greatest expectation is that these girls will be able to realize that they are also protagonists in education. In a rural municipality, such as São Francisco de Itabapoana, we generally have a lot of difficulty in accessing this information and the MOI comes precisely to demonstrate this to them: here is a women’s space too. The MOI reinforces that girls can also study mathematics and robotics”, said Maurício Quitete, technological director of the Department of Education.