“A difficult harsh childhood and adolescence, with scarce resources. Unemployed father, early death of a mother. Unable to access simple and basic things. This is the reality of millions of Brazilians and I was no exception.

Everything only changed when I, voluntarily or not, was rescued by angels I now call mentors. With their help I changed my reality and grew up with the feeling to give it back to other people. In large scale”!
(Fernando Schneider, Joule Institute's Founder)

Our organization was founded in 2012 amid a major desire from Fernando and Shirley to return to the society everything they experienced in their life trajectories.

In 2015 amid Brazil’s alarming economic and social scenario with more than 13 million of unemployed people, the population was desperate looking for an opportunity. At that moment Joule project was carried out. The couple of co-founders invited several of their friends to become mentors and a network took shape. The volunteering model was conceived online to be scalable and accessible to a wide range of people from different locations. A website and a social media page were created and people started enrolling in search of help and then mentors and mentees started to get together.

In two years the project has grown considerably (more than 4.000 mentees and 1500 mentors) and in 2017, the Joule Institute was officially established focusing on spreading positive impact.