Mission
We work with education, expanding opportunities for young people to build a fulfilling personal and professional career. citizenship and happiness.
Make a difference in your community, promote social, economic and human development and look to the generations that are being formed and will be responsible for carrying forward the dream of a better country. It is these desires that inspired Jelson da Costa Antunes to found the JCA Institute, which is part of the JCA Group and is structured with adequate physical facilities and a highly qualified team to develop actions focused on education in the East Fluminense Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro, where the institute is based.
The Jelson da Costa Antunes Institute (IJCA) is a family-run social investment founded in 2004 by transport entrepreneur Jelson da Costa Antunes. Believing that social inequality is an issue to be overcome, the organization works in the area of education with projects that improve opportunities for young people so that they can look to a future with more choice and more chances of building a professional and personal path of achievement, citizenship and happiness.
The IJCA believes in education as an instrument for social transformation through the emancipation of young people, so that they can overcome the constraints that social conditions insist on imposing on them. Since the organization was founded in 2004, the institute has had a positive impact on more than 4,000 teenagers and young people from working-class backgrounds, encouraging them to take a leading role and stimulating them to create and achieve their dreams and projects.
The institute’s main ongoing programs are Strengthening Trajectories and Teaching Workshop. The first aims to give young people (aged 13-18) the opportunity to receive a good high school education, so that they are able to enter and attend good colleges, with strong values and intellectual autonomy to build beautiful life trajectories. Oficina do Ensino, on the other hand, provides professional training with the aim of enabling young people (aged 18-29) to develop job skills and increase their opportunities for decent employment.
The IJCA led the #TamoJunto9ºano movement (2016-2019), an articulation project that brings together education departments, civil society organizations and students to mobilize young people by offering and identifying educational opportunities in the transition from primary to secondary school, seeking to provoke and foster actions that qualify education in the cities of São Gonçalo and Niterói.
IJCA is currently co-leading Redes em Foco Niterói with other social organizations, whose aim is to strengthen networks of local organizations to reduce educational inequalities for children and adolescents in Brazil.
By expanding its role as an articulator, the institute has acted in the development of territories through systematic investment in incentivized cultural and sports projects and the articulation of relationships and strategic partnerships with local public and private companies and organizations in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Jelson da Costa Antunes is considered one of the most prominent entrepreneurs in the country’s transportation sector. Jelson was born in 1927, in the municipality of Itaboraí, Rio de Janeiro. He began his professional life at a very young age, helping his father, initially in a warehouse and later in a pottery workshop. At the age of 19, after working as a bus conductor, electrician, mechanic, supervisor, and manager at bus companies, he became his brother’s partner in a single bus. Jelson worked on his “half bus,” as he used to say, as a driver and mechanic, driving and repairing the vehicle if it broke down.
In 1948, after breaking up the partnership with his brother, Jelson moved to the city of Macaé, where he bought his own bus and started transporting passengers. By the end of the 1940s, he already had four buses running, including a new vehicle, which became known as a “luxury cab” because it was the only one in the region. In the following decades, he founded or joined various companies in the transportation sector.
A successful businessman, in 1968 he bought Auto Viação 1001, at the time the third largest company in the state. The option was to merge the companies, which gradually achieved national prominence. When he acquired Viação Cometa, Jelson da Costa Antunes completed his cycle of entrepreneurial aspirations and became head of one of the largest road transport groups in the country.
Waitress
Administrative Assistant
Data Analyst
Technical Instructor
Social Projects Analyst PL.
Social Projects Analyst PL.
Watchman (Vigban)
Watchman
Pedagogical Advisor
Designer Gráfico (Paiol Cultural)
Analista de Comunicação
Administrative Assistant
Administrative Analyst PL.
Communications Coordinator (Paiol Cultural)
Communications Assistant (Paiol Cultural)
Social Projects Analyst PL.
General Services Assistant
Executive Director
Jovem Aprendiz de Auxiliar Administrativo
Building Maintenance Assistant
Pedagogical Analyst Jr.
Financial Planning Coordinator
General Services Assistant
Social Project Analyst
Social Programs and Projects Coordinator
Start of the Strengthening Paths and Teaching Workshop programs.
The IJCA headquarters has classrooms, a digital center, a library, an auditorium and laboratories for vehicle refrigeration, automotive painting, vehicle electrics and mechanics.
The project focuses on training young social entrepreneurs.
Fetransport 5-year IJCA Award.
Participação no Programa Caminhos e Trilhas focado na formação de gestores sociais em temas que envolviam a educação, trabalho e políticas sociais para juventude.
IJCA certified as a qualifying social organization under the Apprenticeship Law.
Partnership with Ashoka to carry out the “Geração Muda Mundo” (Generation Changes the World) project.
In celebration of its 10th anniversary, the IJCA took part in the 16th edition of Etransport. The stand featured programs with debates and discussions on topics such as first jobs, urban mobility and knowledge as a means of social transformation.
Honorable Mention in the Urban Mobility Award, in the Education and Culture category, with the case study “Youth Voices on Urban Mobility.”
1st place in the ANTPA-ABRATI Award for “Good Practices in Land Passenger Transport” with the project “Professional Experience – Qualifying Young People in Partnership with the Transport Sector.”
Receives the ANTP-ABRATI award for Good Practices in Land Passenger Transport with the “Projeto de Vida” case study in the Social and Environmental Responsibility category.
Organized by IJCA and Spiral Criativa with sponsorship from Auto Viação 1001, Sit Macaé and Macaense via the Ministry of Culture's Rouanet Law.
Co-criação e liderança do Movimento Tamojunto9ºano em parceria com as secretarias municipais de educação de Niterói e São Gonçalo, IFRJ-Campus São Gonçalo e Paiol Cultural com uma agenda propositiva de mobilização e realização de atividades atingindo mais de 2000 alunos do 9 anos da rede pública de ensino.
Start of activities at Parque Vila Maria – São Paulo, with art and educational action projects.
Launch of the Central Solidária de Oportunidades (CSO) platform in partnership with BEM TV.
“The City Beyond the Banks”
Case: JCA Institute, an experiment in professional training for young apprentices.
Motion of applause received by the Niterói Municipal Education Council (CMEN) for its work in expanding the educational and professional trajectories of young people from public schools in the municipality and surrounding region.
Articulation and sponsorship of the 1st Intersectoral Seminar for the Valorization of Public Education of the Tamojunto9ºano Movement.
Seed investment in projects focused on leadership training and action in public education.
DOAR Seal - an initiative of the Doar Institute, this certification legitimizes the professionalism of Brazilian non-governmental organizations.
Beginning of the Rota da Cultura - a program of cultural visits combined with preparatory and artistic workshops on the thematic axes designed especially for the Parque Vila Maria area, in the northern zone of São Paulo.
Launch of the publication Strengthening Trajectories: new paths for young talents XIX Bienal do Livro.
Booklet Good practices in Public Education: ways to improve the quality of education - the publication gathers reports presented as oral communication by education professionals at the 1st Intersectoral Seminar for the Valorization of Public Education, organized by the #TamoJunto9oano movement.
Emergency support for families and focus on remote learning and adaptation of training processes to the digital environment
