Translator: Maíra Soares Reviewer: Marcia Golfieri
Hi, I'm Isadora Faber. I am fourteen.
I created “Diário de Classe” (Classroom Diary).
I think some of you may know it,
but in a moment I'll explain better what it is about.
I'm from Florianópolis and I live in Santinho beach,
which is considered the cleanest beach in Brazil
and it makes me very proud.
But... I came here to talk about “Diário de Classe.”
I will explain how the idea came up and what happened after that.
Well... I am a junior in high school,
but I have studied in the same school since first grade.
It is a public school in our neighborhood.
And when I started studying there, in first grade, the school was new;
it was just two years old.
And when I became a seventh grader,
my sister was studying in a private school
because she received a scholarship,
and I went to visit the school.
At that moment, I started to compare her school with mine.
Her school had everything neatly painted, the doors were intact,
they had fans…
And when I got home and talked to my other sister about it,
I wondered, why do we pay taxes if our school is not like that one, right?
Our public school should be better than private schools,
because that is our right as citizens.
And my sister said she had read a story
about a Scottish girl, Martha Penn,
who had created a blog to complain about the meals in British schools.
She's the other girl, over there.
She used to say she'd come home from school hungry.
So, I decided to create a fan page on Facebook,
because that was the place I knew
had thousands of people online at the same time.
So I created “Diário de Classe” on July 11th, 2012.
And about a month after I created it, I started to appear in the media.
The page got 3,000 likes, and journalists began to look for me.
And I started to be recognized on the streets.
People would come and talk to me, and I thought things were starting to change.
Fifteen days after I first appeared in the media, they renovated my entire school;
all the problems I had reported were fixed.
Whenever I posted something, the problem would be solved in less than a week.
So I was happy, I thought that students and teachers would be glad as well,
but... it was very hard.
Teachers turned against me.
They went to the kids in the older grades.
I was in the seventh grade, so they went to the eighth graders,
telling them that what I was doing was against their work,
that I had to stop,
that the older students had the right to beat me up,
and, since they were underage, they could do whatever they wanted,
as long as that made me stop doing “Diário de Classe.”
Then I started receiving threats.
This lady over there is my grandmother.
One night, she was hit by a stone they threw at my house.
I was nervous, I didn’t know what to do,
but I wasn’t thinking about giving up.
Because every time someone said something [negative] to me,
I got home and read ten supportive comments
— that I should keep with it, that I was doing the right thing,
and that the people against me were jealous.
People motivated me to go on,
including my parents.
A Portuguese teacher registered a police report against me.
My parents are being sued,
because the school director also registered a police report against them.
All of this happened because I tried to improve their workplace.
After all, I'm not the only student there.
They also work there and I thought I was doing a good thing.
But I did not think of giving up because I had the support of my parents
and also the support of lots of people.
And after some time,
some other students also started to create their own classroom diaries.
They'd send me inbox messages saying, "Oh! I’ve created a Classroom Diary!”,
but they also suffered reprisals from directors.
Some students were threatened to be expelled from school.
This is bad, but some of them managed to achieve many improvements,
while many others gave up because they couldn’t bear it.
Overall, I’ve learned that it is worth to continue with the “Diário.”
I thought I was the only one seeking change,
but then I started getting invitations to participate in several events.
I realized that many people, like you,
and the speakers that have been or will be on this stage,
they also look for change, they are also dissatisfied,
and it made me stop feeling alone.
And I've always used Roberto Marinho’s quote,
"We believe in dreams and we build reality,"
because there were even university teachers
saying that it was just a dream,
that public education has always been and will always be like this.
And I felt sorry for their students,
because there is no explanation for this kind of remark.
Now, I have an NGO, the NGO Isadora Faber,
which aims to help other schools, like I helped mine,
because I received about 7 to 10 thousand cries for help from other students
who were also uncomfortable with their schools and they wanted me to help,
to be there, but I just didn’t know how.
So we created an NGO, which has this goal.
Those are some other goals, as you can see there,
but you can check them out on my website.
Now we are working on a project called “The A Student”,
which is a project developed in Bahia.
And we reached out to the creator of the project.
We're bringing it to Florianópolis.
But we are facing problems with the Department of Education,
which is not allowing us to speak at schools.
And next month, on May 16th, I will launch my book in Florianópolis,
and probably in São Paulo, on May 5th -- I am not sure about the exact date.
And later in Rio de Janeiro.
The book tells my whole story,
before and after “Diário de Classe"
and it tells, in details, everything I’ve been through.
So now, I just want to thank all of you,
and the TEDx staff for the invitation,
and congratulate the other speakers.
Thank you.
(Applause)