Som.nhos that Transform Lives

The Som.nhos Laboratory is a project that transforms lives through music, arts, and media. It works with young people at risk of social exclusion, those with special needs, and those in integration programs.

The Som.nhos Laboratory was born two years ago as an inclusive music production project aimed at children and young people at risk of social exclusion. Initially, it was developed exclusively with CERCI, built with great dedication, without any kind of support, and so it continues.

Today we are an educational and creative ecosystem, present in 11 schools of the Poeta Joaquim Serra School Group, involving around 4,000 students from the 1st to the 12th grade, including regular education, special education (through the individual transition plan), PIEF and professional internships in the multimedia area.

We believe that music, sound, media, and the arts can be real tools for inclusion and social transformation, especially for students who don't always find their place in school.

Currently, the main areas of the project are:

Music Production (with over 40 singles released on streaming platforms);

Podcast (lab cast - students with active voice);

Theatre Group (sounds on stage - in creation);

School Radio (lab FM - the voice of the school);

Streaming TV (lab TV - taking shape);

Social Action (empathy in action);

Arts Laboratory (new forms of expression).

The impact of the Som.nhos Lab has been very clear: more school engagement, more self-esteem, more confidence, and more cooperation among students with very different backgrounds and stories that leave a mark on us. Like Rodrigo's story: with a rather complicated personal, family, and school history and no vision for the future, he became a role model and, with some grades, achieved top marks.

The project was designed to be replicable and sustainable, capable of expanding to more schools and communities, always maintaining the school as the engine of social transformation.

With your support, we want to expand the project to new territories, strengthen equipment and resources (such as the creation of a mobile studio), consolidate this innovative educational model nationally, and take the first steps beyond borders, bringing the project to communities in Africa.

Our goal is to contribute to a more inclusive, creative, and humane school, where all students find a space to express themselves and grow. We believe that all students have talent, even when the path is difficult. At the Som.nhos Lab, we promote smiles and empowerment as a way of life.

After two years of proving that the Lab works with real-world projects, published content, a community of over 1,500 followers, and young people who have gone from "students" to creators, the time has come to make it grow.

This is the kind of change we need you for.

We want to raise €2,900 for two initiatives that, together, will allow us to move from "willpower and improvisation" mode to "structure and continuity" mode:

1. Portable audio, video, and radio equipment that allows the Laboratory to leave its headquarters and operate in any space (other schools within and outside the school cluster, neighborhoods, communities, community centers, IPO, partner institutions).
2. Acquisition of adapted materials that allow children and young people with Special Educational Needs to participate fully as creators and not just as spectators.

If you believe that art is a right, that every young person's voice has a place, and that inclusion should reach all schools, neighborhoods, and disadvantaged communities, not just those who already have everything, support this campaign.

Every euro counts. Every share counts. Every word counts.

Join us!

Criar juntas é também aprender a ouvir o outro!

About the author

The Som.nhos Laboratory was born from a simple yet profound conviction: art in inclusion transforms. Not as a theory, but as a lived reality every day, in every classroom, in every recording, in every play rehearsed by those whom the world has yet to learn to listen to. We are a project based at the Poeta Joaquim Serra Secondary School in Montijo, and we are present in 11 schools within the school district, involving more than 4,000 students from grades 1 to 12. We work with young people from mainstream education, special education, and the PIEF program, and our mission is the same for everyone: to give them a voice, tools, and a leading role.

We do it through music, theatre, podcasts, radio, online television, and visual arts. Each format is a door. And there's always a young person waiting to find the right door.

The founder: Pedro Moreira came to this project because of his immense knowledge of music and events. Areas that he has always known how to combine with something bigger than stages and equipment. He realized early on that music has the power to create belonging. That a beat produced by a kid who never felt capable is often the first time that kid believes in himself. In recent years, he built the Som.nhos Laboratory from scratch. Without associated income, without guarantees, but with an unwavering certainty: these young people deserve more than the system alone can give them. There have been moments that confirmed everything. Young people who had never spoken into a microphone and today present radio programs, create the lyrics for their songs and record them. Students with special needs who actively participate in labTV and have become a reference for their peers. Theater sessions in which difficult stories to live became beautiful stories to tell.

Each of those moments was and is a reason to continue.

Our team: The students themselves.

At the Som.nhos Lab, young people are not just participants. They are producers, presenters, actors, reporters, creators. They have real roles, real responsibilities, and real pride in what they build. They are the ones who make labCAST happen. Who give life to labFM and labTV. Who take the stage at Som.nhos em Cena. Who transform the Arts Lab into a space for genuine expression.

Help us open it.

Aqui, toda a gente tem voz. Mesmo quem ainda não sabia que a tinha!

Budget and due dates

1 — Portable equipment (€1,250)

Portable audio, video, and radio equipment that allows the Laboratory to leave its headquarters and operate in any space (other schools within and outside the school cluster, neighborhoods, community centers, partner institutions).

2 — Acquisition of adapted material (€1,250)

Adapted material that allows children and young people with Special Educational Needs to participate fully as creators and not just as spectators.

Transparency note: the values are realistic estimates. If any item becomes cheaper at the time of purchase, the difference will be applied to another item in the same category.

B.3 — Scheduling of fund allocation

The funds will be used between the end of the campaign and the start of the 2026/27 school year, so that the start of September will see the Laboratory better equipped.

Images

Documents

• educacao_especial.pdf

  pdf • 707 KB

• protocolo_de_parceria_aepjs.pdf

  pdf • 1.57 MB

• protocolo_de_parceria_bd2j.pdf

  pdf • 2.04 MB