The “Young Professionals of Sanitation” Program within ABES-SP
The youth’s experience to become a qualified and esteemed professional in society and job market requires the accomplishment of numerous duties and decision making during a period of life that challenges conjoin with emotions, attempts and achievements. Environmental Sanitation is a field of study that has been attracting many of these professionals, mainly the ones who expect to professionally contribute to a better people’s quality of life and adequate care of natural resources. Beside the engineers, there are also biologists, geographers, geologists, chemists, technicians, environmental managers who already possess historical studies regarding the subject, as well as administrators, economists, lawyers and statisticians, among other formations, that have been getting interested and arising the importance of this matter.
Besides the big step of a professional life, like choosing a major, the youth needs to acquire knowledge, search for an internship or job, develop researches, or any other means that allows professional growth. Isolated, these tasks may seem stressful and exhausting, or even inviable. Getting to know young professionals from other universities or professional with more field experience can collaborate to elucidation and to contextualize the young professional among people of higher trust to give assistance with this endeavor which, with collaboration and understanding, can become pleasing and fun. Aiming that, the Brazilian Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering – ABES created the Young Professionals of Sanitation Program, in Portuguese called Jovens Profissionais do Saneamento (JPS).
The JPS program was released in 2011 inspired by the Young Water Professionals program (YWP) of the International Water Association (IWA). ABES sees the program as an opportunity to create the best selection in sanitation, or the “sub-35” since the maximum age to join the program is 35 years old. The program seeks not only to identify leaders, capacitate and development of skills, but also to assist with academic and professional career, and with the creation of a network among the young professionals. The JPS, therefore, is a program of continuous development with the goal of arousing skills and leaders among the youth that begins to act in the environmental sanitation field, in order to satisfy the current and future needs of the sector.
Thinking of this young professional vs. job market interaction, the JPS program promotes activities e voluntary actions, aiming these professionals to actively interact with issues related to sanitation and profession, as well. In the last 2 years, the program has performed field trips, proportioned the interaction among universities, and executed lectures regarding several subjects which sanitation addresses to. The importance of these activities is to bring real opportunities and practices of subjects we see inside the classroom.
Two voluntary actions program are already part of the JPS calendar, which are lectures performed mainly at schools and focused to bring environmental education to the students. The Mundial Water Day and the DIADESOL (Cleaning and Citizenship Interamerican Day) are the main subjects addressed. These lectures and educational activities show the importance of water and solid wastes and encourage the participation of children, young people, and communities about the theme.
The creation of networking ends up occurring because of the group meetings and participation of students from diverse universities, in your own environmental journeys and in Engineering and Technology weeks where young professionals have found out how big is the field of sanitation and your respective challenges. Thinking of expanding opportunities, the JPS performed a “Conversation Circle – HR Coffee”, where HR professionals gave tips of professional conduct, professional reallocation and job seeking. The JPS also encourages the youth to participate in activities such as the reforestation of the Cantareira Aquifer System – where the idea was to contribute to the preservation and recovery of the area by participating together with the project “Jovens Plantando o Futuro (Young Planting the Future)”- and the participation in the “Virada Sustentável (Sustainable Overnight)” in Sao Paulo city, as well.
Get involved ! =D
We are very excited about meeting and aiding foreigners who come to Brazil and are interested on how young professionals like us are involved in environment and water issues. Also, we like sharing our experiences about studies and job opportunities and dialogue about differences and challenges abroad. People from Italy, Austria, Peru and Democratic Republic of Congo have at least once participated in our activities and we expect to receive more nationalities and foreigners.
If you don’t speak Portuguese yet, we have participants able to speak many languages and we hope we can offer you joyful and wealthy moments in our group.
For more information, please write us and introduce yourself at jps@abes-sp.org.br
We are thankful for our participant Lucas Pedroso, who translated this page.
Written in January 2017
