Noah Cellura wants eight UF freshmen to spend their summer in a Brazilian slum.
Cellura, a UF business administration sophomore, hopes to recruit students to teach English to impoverished children in Rio de Janeiro through Project Youth Empowering Education Together, which he founded to fight education inequality. Project YEET, which he founded last year, will offer internships in Summer for students to teach English to local kids in Rocinha, the largest favela, or slum, in Rio de Janeiro.
Cellura, 20, said he is making the internship available only to UF freshmen to give younger students opportunities usually saved for older students.
Plus, he said, they have the same English-speaking skills as upperclassmen.
“I feel like UF freshmen oftentimes get overlooked for a lot of internships,” he said. “So I think a lot of freshmen end up feeling like they wasted their freshmen summer.”
Students have until Jan. 18 to apply online on the organization’s webpage. Before the trip, the interns will participate in safety training and learn basic Portuguese, Cellura said.
Project YEET will invite four interns during Summer A and four during Summer B. Students will pay $4,380 for each session or $5,430 if they want to stay for Summer C.
Cellura, who attended high school in Brazil, Panama and the United Arab Emirates, said he has grown up helping people in need.
After starting Project YEET, he led a group of his friends last summer to raise money to build a bridge in Panama so children could get to school during the rainy season.
This year, instead of raising money, Cellura wants to teach English. He’s now working with friends in Rio de Janeiro to set up the program and host the interns.
“I was thinking of what are skills that UF students have that people in those other places need, and I think the number one skill we can offer is English,” Cellura said.
He said he understands students may be concerned for their safety in the favela, but they will be taught how to avoid being a target of criminals.
Liam Guerin, a UF exploratory freshman, said he’s planning to apply to the internship because he believes people can achieve higher levels of equality through education.
Although the 19-year-old has not yet chosen a major, he said the internship will teach him skills that will help him throughout college.
“What we’re going to be doing will hone in skills that will help me with whatever I end up doing,” he said. “Being organized, public speaking and just being able to see a completely different lifestyle will be a great perspective-builder, which is also good to have.”
jtavel@alligator.org
@taveljimena
