Sponsor's Update
13/11/2007
Dear Sponsors,
Year started with children enjoying their summer school vacation when they played a lot with the Christmas presents and took some rest, preparing themselves and restoring their energies to face a new journey in 2007.
In January some children spent summer vacation together with their biological parents, enjoying happy moments, strengthening affective bonds, and increasing family relationship between them.
Children who stayed in the village took part in many activities and went to many places, like Mineral Water Park, which is very important to the fresh water supply of Brasília city. Beside the water supply, this park offers a beautiful space where people can enjoy swimming pools.
We are very proud of Damião who lived in our village until he joined the Brazilian Army. All children and youths can see on him a good example of perseverance and fight.
Some of our youths have been taking part in the Health Pastoral in a nearby church, showing awareness of the importance to help less fortunate people. They are very engaged in the local community activities focused on assistance of people in need promoted by the church.
In May we celebrated Mother’s Day with many events at school and church. There was an especial dance performance showed by some of our children: Thaís, Poliana, Rosângela, Carolina, Karolaine, Rayane, and Paula. Presentation was magnificent and very meaningful for the SOS mothers. Also Rafael, Wellington, Osimar, Eduardo, Tiago, Jonisvaldo, and Lucas showed karate.
Refurbishment of SOS houses, which started last year, is almost finished, making our SOS houses cosier and more beautiful for our children.
It was a great pleasure to us the opening of our Community and Family Strengthening Programme in Cidade Ocidental, a nearby city with 62.000 inhabitants and 53 km from Brasília. Though this action we will be contributing to diminish children abandonment and keep them safe and off the streets. Many children of this community are at risk to get involved in drug addiction and infantile prostitution due to the lack of after school activities and perspectives for the future. With this programme we can offer full-time care and protection for these children, as well as teach their families to take care of their own children, our main goal.
Today many women from Cidade Ocidental work in Brasília, this factor contributes to more socially vulnerable children, explaining our presence there. We are already assisting 60 children and 30 families, our aim is 300 children by December. To make this happen, we need spaces in the local organization where we can assist the children.
SOS Children’s presence in the state of Goiás, so close to Brazilian capital, is a signal of vitality and commitment in assisting people in need.
Expressing our deeply gratitude to all those who believe in SOS Children’s work and dream about a good life and fair society for these children, we would like to say: thank you very much.
Elena Soboleff
Sponsor's Report from Rio Grande
Dear sponsors,
Once more, Caicó SOS Children has the pleasure to share our activities in this first term with you.
We are assisting 135 children and youths in our 15 SOS houses, our full capacity. In our Youth Community, placed in Natal, 19 youths live there. During this first term, we welcomed 15 new children and 12 were reintegrated to their biological families.
Summer school vacation, in the beginning of this year, had a very intense warm weather. So SOS mothers chose to do some little trips with the children, going to clubs and beaches were they could enjoy a swimming pool or lake. As our city does not have a nice leisure activities programming, we set our own programming in the village to those who stayed. One of our special programming was Community Movie; we rented the necessary equipment to project films and chose some titles that were for all ages. Children and youths loved an open-air movie.
Some SOS mother went to their birth town named Currais Novos with their children.
We go on with our Village Plan which priority is education. Through this plan we can keep 45% of our children and youths studying in private schools, aiming a better education quality as well as opportunities of cultural and sportive activities. A good example of a well-done work is Jéferson who finishes secondary school this year and after that will take the entrance examination to do medical school at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte.
Our SOS mothers carry on improving their capacitation through weekly meetings, in which are discussed themes focused on health, advocacy, psychology etc.
Continuing the integrated actions between Caicó SOS Children and Community and Family Strengthening Program developed in the Social Centre, we developed a project named Listening to Children within children and youths they took part in through workshops and ludic activities, awaking to the importance of a good relationship with family and a full development of their potentials and acknowledgement of their rights.
Caicó Community and Family Strengthening Programme aims to develop children’s and adolescents’ potential, family autonomy, and community empowerment, always respecting socio-cultural manifestations. At this moment we assist 240 children split in four districts: one Community Centre situated in Castelo Branco district, being the base of our programme, and 3 other centres in Paulo VI, Samanaú, and Salviano Santos districts. We offer pedagogical support on remedial classes, arts, and computing.
All activities develop by Community and Family Strengthening Programme have a good acceptation in the communities due to its major aim that is woman empowerment with focus on family.
This was a few words about our activities which are possible due to your priceless support.
Francisco de Assis Santiago Junior
Relevant Countries: Brazil.