“My husband and I had a dream of adopting a child, and we listened to hour heart and chose Renan. He is a charming boy, endowed with skills, and demonstrates to have a very kind heart. Waking up every morning with a hug and “I love you” fills us with indescribable good feelings. As mother, I admire greatly my son for his character and willpower, I like his dynamic spirit and the way he overcomes difficulties. He is always happy with his life, he is always in a good mood and always sees the good side of everything. I am extremely proud of the human being he is becoming.
In spite of having a difficult childhood, he never lets himself be overwhelmed and is a strong and determined adolescent, affectionate and helpful. Although having ADHD, slight difficulty in learning, sometimes inattentive and hyperactive, easily distracted and the tendency to give quick answers, he learns fast through visual stimuli. All these limitations are now being tested and surmounted. In a complete development process and surprisingly positive results.
In our journey, we relied on great help from the Growing Up Right Institute, because the Entrepreneurship and Rural Administration course was a milestone in Renan’s life and in the life of the family. We began to talk, debate, understand and we discovered values and potentialities in our farm, things we did not know up to that time. We used to look forward to the tasks recommended by his educator, seeing that it was through these tasks that our talks emerged, and we used to spend hours taking our typical ‘green tea’ and debating about the suggested themes. Everything was very valuable and involved us as a family.
In addition, Renan made great progress, he became responsible and disciplined, he began to keep schedule, got organized and express himself clearly. Now he is an extrovert person and sociable and he learned how to tune all this and take advantage of it. Through the course, he began to look at himself and at the farm in a different form. Our way of seeing things has changed and my son began to cast a look of progress on the farm and believe that it is possible to lead a decent, productive and happy life in the countryside.
Nowadays, Renan is going through a very interesting maturing process, learning from his mistakes and seeking to be better day after day. Intelligent and creative he is committed and building himself at every new discovery and experience. And we are always present, attempting to show the most effective journey and let him free to make his own choices. He will possibly be the successor of our farm, as he spots the potential to idealize profitable projects. However, we concluded that it is important to let him free to make his professional choices. We show the way, but he chooses.
I will always be on his side, supporting and encouraging his professional ideas. I believe that he will succeed in everything he decides to do, provided he continues committed, responsible and serene. I support him with love, I try to be present, talk, analyze his everyday asks, his ideas and attitudes, I praise him when he comes up with good things and reprimand him when he does something wrong. It is a privilege for me to be Renan’s mother. It was the best present we received from life, I feel extremely accomplished with my son, I evolve and grow every day on his side. My son teaches me a lot about love, responsibility and about how to look at life in a more amusing and lighter manner. His happiness enchants us and his charisma fascinates me. I feel happy and proud at his evolution. The credit of this progress also goes to the Growing-Up, which was our ally in his growth and maturing process. For all this, I have a feeling of gratitude to God, to my son, to educator André – who treats all apprentices with respect sowing dreams and making friendships – and to the team of the Institute for this nice project which made a great difference in our life”.
Mariane Röpke, mother of Renan Röpke Biljan, who was a young apprentice in 2023 at the Entrepreneurship and Rural Management Program, in Agudo (RS)
