Kauane da Rosa Silveira

“I have always been passionate about the rural setting and its beauties, and I know to what extent it is important for my family. However, as soon as we addressed this matter right at the beginning of the Entrepreneurship and Rural Management course I realized to what extent the countryside is indeed important and deserves to be valued even further. When I joined the course, I was already considering an improvement to my farm. The idea for my final project, dairy products and derivatives, derived from the fact that milk production already was a second source of income of my parents, but our flagship crop is tobacco. In order to devise the project, I talked a lot with my parents at home and the plan was made with their participation.

Now, less than two months after completing the project, my parents are already putting into practice the plan at the farm. Forage crops were sown, it is food for the cows, and at the moment four of our cows are pregnant. We are selling the milk to a cooperative. Planning with my family was conducted jointly with what I was learning at the course as an apprentice of the Growing-Up Right Institute, an experience that was more than incredible. I learned a lot of things and I had experiences that I will never forget. When I passed on to my parents something that I had learned, I could see to what extent they were proud of me, and always lending support to me.

Nowadays, while I devote part of my time to my farm, I am also attending a course for future teachers, as I want to be a teacher. Later, I intend to enroll in a college course for a graduate degree in mathematics, then teach mathematics and get a postgraduate degree in my area. Since my childhood I have been dreaming of becoming a teacher, which was also the dream of my grandmother when she was my age. I feel like working in education is my vocation, because I believe that the changes we are eagerly expecting stem from education. At the Institute, I realized that my future profession is not directly linked with agriculture, I could teach in a rural school in order to encourage the young to seek opportunities and spot their potentialities in the rural setting, things that I realized at the course”.

Kauane da Rosa Silveira, 16, was a young apprentice in 2023 in the Rural Professional Learning Program held by the Growing-Up Right Institute, in Rio Pardo (RS).