Brazil teacher adapts library to help kids learn

A teacher from Rio de Janeiro has adapted a local library into a classroom to continue to support children from the city's Salgueiro favela, as public schools remain closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

With students unable to attend school for almost five months because of lockdown restrictions, Ana Paula Bloch found a way to restart their education.

"There is a field close to the (library), and they were agglomerated there during the entire day. You know that in the community, the kids are used to being by themselves, playing, having fun, but (I thought) we could use this time in a more productive way," Bloch said.

Most children in Salgueiro do not have a computer or good internet service for holding classes online, and many parents had to return to work and have nowhere to leave their kids.

But with an already precarious education system facing further disruption from the pandemic, Bloch's work is invaluable.

"Some kids come here without even knowing how to write their own name, at seven-eight years old. The public schools are overcrowded, and in most schools, there are too many students for one teacher," she said.