Recent Highlights

By Ana Paula da Cruz - project coordinator, August 12, 2008 05:02 PM

This update was translated by staff and volunteers of Dreams Can Be Foundation
August, 2008

1129 Lunch for Children in Free NGO Day-Care Center.
Dear donor friends, the NGO “Voluntarios Fazendo Criança Sorrir” {Volunteers Making Children Smile} is thankful for all your support that was destined in them to our project with children, adolescent, carriers of physical deficiency and chronic illnesses.
Our project works with children of 6 months through 16 years at our round the clock day-care center, providing the children with early childhood development in alphabetization, recreation and providing all the meals that they need during the period that they are with us.
With the aid of food donations for the children, a real priority, it was possible to save some money and to remodel a space that was donated and that we transformed into a community library, with room for educational games, space for children to play, pertaining to school reinforcement and every Saturday we have the project “video in the community” in which the children watch a film and later they have a snack, today we take care of more than 120 children, we offer to 49 families basic food baskets (food staples) and we distribute soup for 200 people.
With this new space of recreation it was easier to attract the children and the adolescents, we help the children with school difficulties, we help them with their homework and we can show them that only through their studies they will have a better condition of life. We have a big number of adolescents wanting to participate, but beyond the small space we need more people to help teach. We are needing computers for the children, we currently have only 1 for all the children to use, we need also a printer in order to print the materials pertaining to school reinforcement, bookshelves for more books, desks, today we are using the tables of the bar in front of the project they lend to us, but its not enough and some children have to do activities on the floor, we could also use 1 television and 1 DVD player as what we are using is loaned by a member from the community, educational games and 1 refrigerator to be able to supply water and to keep the snacks.
Marcos, 14 years old, who is part of the project, was having much difficulty learning, he was missing classes from regular school due to shame in front of his classmates due to an inability to learn the subjects. With school reinforcement through the project and the method of learning that we adopt with him, he has begun improving and he is no longer missing classes. This was possible also because of the new space.

Carina, 10 years old, child with disturbance, through the affection, attention patience and the method adopted by our volunteers, already is recognizing colors, vowels and putting together some syllables.
With this project we arouse in the children the interest of reading and the importance of study. Our intention is to form adults, who although living in a poor community and with little access to education, acquire knowledge of their rights and duties as citizens.
The main objective of this project is, beyond being a space where the parents can leave their children to go to work and to gain sustenance for their families, is to help children in the difficulties with school, to improve their school attendance, to stimulate their interest in reading and to keep them busy with good things.

Our sincere thanks for the donations that we receive, without the aid in feeding of the children, we would not have been able to remodel this space. We would like to continue counting on the contribution of our donors to improve and to be able to take care of more children and adolescents. Thank you for all the people who believe on our work of solidarity. We continue needing the aid of all.


Attachments:

• Children in the new learning space & library
• produce for project and families of children
• Children with the projects one computer

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Voluntario Fazendo Crianca Sorrir, Project Update

By Joshua Reed - Intern Dreams Can Be, December 20, 2007 06:53 PM

Voluntários Fazendo Criança Sorrir

Ana Paula da Cruz, after loosing a baby, decided that she should change her perception of life and began dedicating her time to the children within her community.

Previously working with events since 1998, Ana Paula often organized children’s parties. She realized that the favorite game of the kids was to simulate and reproduce the violence that was inherent in their day to day lives. This conveyed to her a dangerous acceptance of their realty that should not be.

Worried about changing this vision of the children, in relation to the world they live in, she created in her home a place that initially offered a minimum level of assistance. Since then however, the project has grown into a place of voluntary orientation and daily assistance to many struggling mothers. One of the main intentions of the project is to create a better relationship between parents and children.

Voluntários Fazendo Criança Sorrir initially received very little help from outside sources. They relied mainly upon the help of volunteering neighbors within the community as well as conducting raffles in order to collect money. The other main source of their support came from Ana’s relatives, like her uncle Fernando Rosa, who initial paid for 60% of the food. Currently the project has been continuing now for 6 years in the home where Ana used to live and has 42 children that attend daily.

The majority of the children that attend come from extremely difficult situations. Many of them have parents that are involved in and/or addicted to drugs. Some come from broken homes living with single mothers who are unemployed or who often work far away from their homes only returning once or twice a month, while others do not have parents at all.

The children that attend the project do activities such as theater where they learn how to read and write through the plays. All of the children receive three meals per day as well as necessary health care assistance. Families of the children also receive baskets with basic foods such as rice, beans, and pasta. These baskets also contain medications for the kids in situations of disease.

Currently the Project has a great deal of needs. At this time Ana only has one other volunteer (Fernando’s daughter) and coordinating has become very difficult. In 2004 Fernando, who contributed a large portion of their support, tragically passed away and to make matters even more difficult many of those who used to support Voluntários Fazendo Criança Sorrir are no longer helping.

These difficulties have nearly caused a loss of hope in Voluntários Fazendo Criança Sorrir. Their desires are to have this project working like it once did, becoming again a reference to the community where boys and girls can live apart from violence and situations of risk. Regaining the volunteers needed that together have the same idea of changing the destiny of these kids. Voluntários Fazendo Criança Sorrir needs help, so that in the future, the youth in this community can have opportunities and chances that will keep them from a life of crime and violence that so many other children have already fallen victim to due to their exclusion from society.

Voluntários Fazendo Criança Sorrir intends to convey awareness of the poverty and suffering of marginalized women and children due to the indifference from the public powers and the lack of concern or support in the private sector. The project fights for social justice in its attempt to portray women as being ideally important within society and having a significant role. They teach parents and children to change their perspectives of people that live in areas of social exclusion, and to contest and review the preconceptions that are imposed upon families living within poor communities enabling them to perceive their true place in society.

We have a special commitment in the future – to become good words through good actions

If you want to meet our kids, come here!

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Update on our Project

By Ana Paula - Coordinator, May 25, 2006 05:24 PM

We are currently serving 43 children, 35 of which are with us full-time and 7 more whose parents have now found work. For the others, while the children in are in the creche the parents can seek work opportunities.

We have, however, instituted new policies where we limit the amount of time that these children can stay if the parents are not employed in order that the parents do not take advantage of our services and to be sure that they are really looking for employment at that time.

We have 25 youth, who are taking reinforcement classes and a hand craft class with recycled materials, three times a week with two women from the community.

We also help 22 families who have children with disabilities or suffer from a chronic disease; with medicine, food, and sometimes transport to the doctor. We acquire these resources through campaigns we hold in different neighborhoods in the region.

Every week we go to two more well off neighborhoods, explain the project and collect food to make the monthly food baskets. Each child has a sponsor who pays for their medicines.

36 of the families receive monthly food baskets and clothes, an organization Rio Voluntário (Rio Vounteers) provides the clothing, and we also have a campaign to receive clothes.

We started working once a week with two women from the community to talk about sex education and birth rate control (one is the mother of a child from the project). The team has started a course in the "health center" to teach these things.

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