PORTUGUESE AS A WELCOMING LANGUAGE VIA WHATSAPP: EMPOWERING AND CAPACITING VENEZUELAN MIGRANT WOMEN
Portuguese as a Welcoming Language; entrepreneurship, empowerment, design thinking, thematic course, Whatsapp.
A brief analysis of official documents relating to migration and refuge in Brazil shows that the situation of migrant and refugee women in the country iis permeated by a series of difficulties ranging from access to language learning to social and professional integration. There are several reasons that demonstrate this reality. This paper aims to design and make available a Portuguese as a Welcoming Language with WhatsApp as a learning tool. The goal of this course is empowering Venezuelan refugee women through entrepreneurship. Throughout the training, we analysed the linguistic and cultural development of the participants and their influence on the opening of their businesses in Brazil. Methodologically, we conducted an interventional case study whose main focus was the design of an online course (via WhatsApp) for a group of 20 women residing in the 5 regions of Brazil and, later, two other classes of the same course. Thus, based on the perspective of Portuguese as a Welcoming Language, we sought theoretical input to develop classes that could welcome and empower participants. Among the results, we noticed the real need to teach the Portuguese language associated with teaching entrepreneurship, due to three urgencies: learning the language, having a means of subsistence in Brazil, and the formation of communities and/or support networks for migrants.