Paulo Freire (1921-2021) a Centennial of Actuality

This page will compile the initiatives and events organized to mark Paulo Freire’s Centennial, to celebrate his work, to reflect, in a participatory way, on the paths of education that, in this 21st century, include Freirean proposals, full of contradictions and challenges.

In the year that celebrates the centenary of the birth of the thinker, pedagogue and activist Paulo Freire, CeiED, in collaboration with the UNESCO-ULHT Chair “Education, Citizenship and Cultural Diversity”, organizes a set of initiatives and events, in collaboration with other research centres, collectives, institutes and institutions in the Luso-Afro-Brazilian and European space.

“Being cultural or being conscious is the radical way of being of humans, as beings that, remaking the world they have not made, make their world and, in this making and remaking, remake themselves. They are, because they are being.”

Like this, there are countless sentences by Paulo Freire, stressing the right and the duty of each person to assert himself as the subject of his own history and, as such, of the history of the world.

We can say that Paulo Freire showed with absolute clarity, the importance of EDUCATION, then and now. Education as liberation from the chains of instilled thought, Education for citizenship, Education fundamental to becoming aware of who we are, what we want, and the power of our action. Not only School Education, but also formal and non-formal Education in all areas of life and at all moments of our journeys.

This is how, in the scope of the UNESCO-ULHT Chair, we have held a series of meetings (Rodas de Conversa) allusive to Paulo Freire’s centennial through the study group Sociomuseology + Paulo Freire. The meetings are always broadcasted online (via Facebook) and are held bimonthly. They are conducted by invited professors, always having as a theme one of Paulo Freire’s works or a practical experience that is inspired by Freirean methodology.

Researchers linked to CeiED have been participating in national and international events in celebration of Paulo Freire’s centennial, such as the Paulo Freire World Forum, and will mark their presence in future ULHT events, as the II International Congress Humanism, Human Rights and Citizenship (October 2021) and the organization of the I International Seminar “Paulo Freire: A Centennial of Actuality” (December 2021).

To support this program, CeiED has ensured a scholarship position for a researcher to carry out, among other actions, a survey of what exists of Paulo Freire’s work in the main Portuguese libraries, at national and municipal level. One of the focuses of this research is to provide data for the distribution of a Portuguese edition of the original manuscript of Pedagogy of the Oppressed to the libraries in question.