Mais Diferenças
2025 Honourable Mention
Brazil
Mais Diferenças’ Story
“We’re not strengthening teachers’ inclusion skills only for children living with disabilities,” says Zirlene Ferreira, a pedagogical coordinator with Mais Diferenças (More Differences). “We’re doing it for the benefit of other children as well, because they will become adults who are free from ableist thinking, and ready to welcome everyone as capable human beings.”
Zirlene is speaking about Mais Diferenças’s Play Project. Play is a partnership with the São Paulo Municipal Department of Education to integrate inclusive pedagogical practices into early childhood education. The aim is to eliminate barriers of exclusion at an early age by establishing play as a way for children of all abilities to interact. Since Brazil has implemented laws requiring schools to mainstream students with disabilities, more than 17,000 Sao Paulo educators have been trained on Play’s approach, and nearly 400,000 students have benefited from its inclusive focus.
Mais Diferenças is a civil society organization that promotes the rights of persons with disabilities. By bringing together individuals with diverse disabilities, rather than focusing on a single impairment, Mais Diferenças fosters mutual learning and a sense of solidarity. In education, Mais Diferenças develops accessible materials to help ensure that educational networks and schools seek to equalize learning opportunities for all.
The organization’s cultural work includes the production of books in multiple accessible formats. Book designers use simple language, image descriptions, Brazilian sign language and other tools to democratize access and introduce thousands of new readers to the joys of reading. Mais Diferenças also helped draft laws that pluralize education rights to include students with disabilities.
Through advocacy, Mais Diferenças influences public policies and legislation that promote the rights of people with disabilities so they can participate fully. The organization participates in forums and rights councils, working closely with public administrators and politicians to create a more inclusive society. For example, it contributed to incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into the Brazilian Constitution. Since its launch in 2005, Mais Diferenças has developed more than 200 projects in inclusive education and culture and made accessible more than 4,000 products, publications and materials. Mais Diferenças’ broad collaborations create space in which to unite people of various abilities. Its ongoing success in reducing societal barriers ensures that increasing numbers of people have equitable opportunities to participate fully in social, cultural and economic life and contribute to a more inclusive society.
