Sponsor's update from Jacarepaguá, Brazil

Child sponsorship update from the SOS Children's Village Jacarepaguá, Brazil from October 2008

Today we would like to tell you news on our two programmes: Family-based Care and Community and Family Strengthening. We are always focusing our work on the assurance of the children’s and adolescents’ rights, since they are the protagonists on the building process of a society more human, worthy, and just.

We are very proud of seven of our teenagers who start their professional lives getting into the job market and beginning their autonomous life process too. To reach it, we could count on a partnership with Líder Magazine, a chain of retail stores, and Arouca, another company. Also we already have started to negotiate a new partnership with UNIMED. Through these partnerships we can do punctual actions to benefit and contribute to improve the quality of our SOS families’ lives, even when our youths leaves the village to return to their biological families or to start their independent lives.
Promoting other actions with the same aim, we continue on discussing with an entrepreneur group which will be able to support our Village, always having in mind to increase perspectives that can be inserted in the daily routine of the SOS families.

Our teenagers who work for Youth Forum have been opening space to discuss and guarantee the role of adolescents within the community. Naturally, this discussion takes them to understand and be more critical about social and political reality in which they are inserted.

Supporting children in the community at Jacarepaguá, Brazil

2008 for Community and Family Strengthening Programme was highlighted with transformations and success. We put into practice our new metodology focused on the integral approach, in which everybody was inserted working for an integral learning on children and their families. At the beginning, it was hard, but after several meetings, workshops, and follow-ups, our people are working inside this approach whithout any difficulty. Our families and children take part in activities and excursions understanding that they are not a simple part of it but agents of transformation and education.

With Glaxo, a healthcare company, we have a project for women aiming generation of income for their families. On this project we have several courses, such as telemarketing and patchwork.

Currently Community and Family Strengthening Programme assists 650 children and we intend to increase to 800 for 2009. We are negotiating a new partership to open a new centre in Andaraí district, we are keeping our fingers crossed for it. Also we have been getting volunteers to help us with the activities for children. We are very glad with all we have reached. We only can thank everybody who has helpened us and believed in us.

Concluding, we would like to deeply thank you, dear sponsor, for believing in our work and becoming a part of it, putting your efforts into guaranteeing children’s and adolescents’ rights and helping them and their families to have a better life.

Ana Cristina de Almeida Pinto, Village Director; Ana Cristina Nunes, Social Centre Director and Márcia Bertoletti, Sponsorship Department