Also in Rio, project "Surfavela" teaches young people to refurbish used surfboards, which are then sold on neighboring Ipanema beach. And in Porto Alegre, capital of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, young people are practicing computer maintenance and repair techniques.

Many of the students at these courses have never completed high school, and all come from low-income neighborhoods on the margins of the cities in which they live. This would normally disqualify them from typical vocational or job-training programs, but not from Capacitação Solidária. Created in 1996, this innovative program specifically seeks out young people aged 14 21 who are not likely to have the resources or the qualifications for more formal job training. So far more than 15,000 young adults, over half of them women, have benefitted from over 100 types of professional courses including gardening, surfboard manufacturing, video production and graphic arts.

Now, with $5.15 million from an IDB affiliate and $10 million in financing from the IDB, Capacitação Solidária will train an additional 18,000 young men and women, as well as strengthen the institutional capacity of at least 500 participating private training organizations (PTOs).

Capacitação Solidária does not offer training itself. Instead, it solicits bids from PTOs that compete for contracts to offer courses. The PTOs are mostly nongovernmental organizations, unions, community associations, and small businesses that have a proven track record in training urban youth and promoting partnership with the private sector. Courses cover dozens of areas. Along with those mentioned above, participants can acquire skills necessary to work as photographers, electricians, dental assistants, mechanics, heavy equipment operators, seamstresses, bakers, hairdressers and musical instrument makers.

In addition to providing job placement services, the Capacitação Solidária program explicitly encourages its beneficiaries to either return or remain in school to complete their formal education requirements. It also requires students to take part in a mandatory apprenticeship equivalent to one-third of the total course hours, with the remaining two-thirds dedicated to technical instruction and sessions focused on basic life skills such as self-esteem, leadership and team work, work ethics, problem solving and communications.

To compensate for their time in the program, students are awarded monthly stipends the equivalent of slightly less than half the minimum salary (US$40/month).

Many participants see the income-generating potential of their new job skills only as a first step. In a Capacitação Solidária video about participants in its 1997 courses, a young woman taking a seamstress class in Porto Alegre tells an interviewer: "This course will help put me through college. I'll be able to sew part-time and study at night."

Others appreciate the chance to simply broaden their horizons. "You meet new people, and you learn to be more sociable," says a young woman at a computer maintenance workshop in Rio. "You also get to know professionals in the field, and that can help you to find a better job."