São Paulo – Students of public schools of Campinas, São Paulo, are having a special week. It’s the Education & Coffee Week, which is bringing coffee into the school meals and classes as a subject of study, art projects, music activities, and playtime. The initiative includes references to the Arab culture like the study of the Arab origin of coffee and the presence in the meal menu of kofta, a food widely consumed in Arab countries like Lebanon. Pictured above, launch of the Week.
Coffee expert and the project’s creator Ali El-Khatib says the week was scheduled for now to be a homage to the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29 and Lebanese Independence Day on November 22. The program of the Education & Coffee Week started on Monday and runs through Friday (26). Saturday (27) will see a closing event for guests celebrating still Black Awareness Day that took place on November 20.
The week opened last Monday by Campinas’ Education municipal secretary José Tadeu Jorge at Professor Francisco Ponzio Sobrinho School at Vila Joaquim Inácio. El-Khatib says that through the project kids will do projects on the importance of coffee, the origin of coffee growing by the Arabs, the history of coffee in Campinas, the state of São Paulo and Brazil, coffee in sports, and others.
The project will encompass 9,000 students. In addition to school projects and explanations on the topic by teachers, the students will consume in the school meal coffee-based products like coffee cake, coffee brigadeiro, Arab kofta with coffee sauce, rice with coffee, beef with coffee gravy, and banana smoothie with coffee. Cartoons and playtime will also center on coffee. All these coffee-based products were evaluated and tested in the CEASA-Campinas School Food Kitchen and presented to the nutritionists engaged in the project. CEASA-Campinas president Valter Greve participated in the launch of the initiative.
Coffee promoter
El-Khatib is a promoter of the Arab coffee and culture. He has organized other events on both topics, including Campinas Coffee Festival, Arab Coffee at Maria-Fumaça Train, Coffee Run & Walk, and barista courses, always in coordination of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). When launching Education & Coffee Week, El-Khatib said the Arab and Brazilian peoples have one bond of union in the coffee culture. Tadeu Jorge also addressed the historic relevance of coffee in the Arab countries and Brazil.
The Education & Coffee program is coordinated by the Secretariat of Education of the City of Campinas in partnership with Jerusalem Institute of Brazil, led by Ali El-Khatib. Partners of the event are SESI, SENAC, and the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce (ABCC); it’s supported by the Agronomic Institute of Campinas, CIESP-Campinas, Campinas Convention & Visitors Bureau, CEASA-Campinas, and the School of Physical Education of UNICAMP. ABCC president Osmar Chohfi is expected to participate in the closing of the week together with other authorities and guests like Ibrahim Alzeben, ambassador of Palestine in Brazil.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
