In Brazil, football is a national passion. So, in a country where 2.9 million children work, and 1.3 million are not enrolled in school, a variety of initiatives use football’s popularity to help get young people off the streets and into the classroom.

A program called ‘Spaces of Hope’ reaches out to poor children in violent slum areas in cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. ‘Spaces’ offers these young people football as a fun activity that can be a healthy and productive outlet for teens in difficult circumstances. It also offers programs in music and theater, libraries and computers with free Internet access.

Two members of the Brazilian national football team have founded centres for at-risk children that combine study and sports. The centres provide daily lessons in a wide range of subjects, from English to computer literacy, and the school day ends with a game of football.

The Manguere project, in an extremely poor section of Sao Luis, takes the same approach in helping at-risk children and teens. It offers them classes in art, music, and academic subjects, followed by a rowdy afternoon of football.

In an adolescent detention facility in Curitiba, football provides an important way for troubled youth to channel their energy, frustrations and anger. So far, the football project, sponsored by UNICEF, seems to be working. After their release, the youths who have participated in the program have significantly lower rates of recidivism and higher rates of school enrolment than was usual.

Brazil's Vitoria Football Club is famous for seeking out and training promising young athletes to become professional players. But most of the forty boys aged 14 to 16 who attend the school at any given time won't actually make it onto the national team. Formerly, they had to return to their usual lives without much education or vocational training. To help remedy this situation, UNICEF, the Vitoria Club and an NGO have begun a program whereby the boys are enrolled in school while training at football. Weekly supplementary classes teach them about human rights, AIDS and violence prevention, money management and languages.