Samstag, 8. Mai 2010

History of Casa das Mangueiras

In 1973, kids and adolescents from 7 to 19 were found in a police station of Ribeirão Preto. 2 cells with 20 children each. The children were skinny, with up to 6 months without seeing the sun, huge hair and open injuries. Policemen and dogs guarded them and the doors of the cells were electrified.



A group of human rights pastors accepted the challenge for changing this situation. They went to the court of justice and achieved the liberation of the children. The condition was, that they had to look after the them. So they began their work on the street. After a while Sueli (today's director) found an unused parcel of land full of Mango trees, where the children built a big house, which served as their home and as the NGO's house for several years. The goal of the NGO was to educate.

In the 80's the Casa das Mangueiras moved to the Vila Recreio, where it was more close to the childrens reality.
The "Casa das Mangueiras" is a pedagogic experience with adolescents that are in situations of risk. It has an important social function in Ribeirão Preto.:







Freitag, 7. Mai 2010

CdM - Experience 5

The second week of my stage I went to a place where many homeless people of Ribeirão Preto stay on the road. There we cared about a 32 years old houseless man with tuberculosis, who had phoned to . He has been a boy from the Casa das Mangueiras since his father has turned him adrift when he was 7 years old.

We took him to a hospital and achieved to let him stay in a nursing home till he finishes his medical treatment. He had n´t taken his medicaments for one month and had drunk a lot of pinga (cachaça). After two weeks he left the nursing home without finishing the treatment, because he is used to live without walls around him.

The social assistant searched and found him and convinced to stay there til the end of the treatment. Interesting: He wanted Comics (Gibis) to read them. He can read and write although he has lived on the street for all his live.

After the treatment had finished, he returned to the street, where he probably will continue living for a long time.

Sonntag, 25. April 2010

AIESEC Teamdays

The Teamdays of AIESEC Ribeirão Preto were absolutely awesome!!! All Team members went to a holliday house to spend two days talking about the future of the Local Commitee in Ribeirão and doing several activities to understand better the purposes of AIESEC for 2010. Tosk (Daniel), the president of AIESEC RP, is very competent and puts a main focus on activating sustainable thinking and leadership. He says that, if future leaders think sustainable, they can change the world. I think that this is the main goal of AIESEC.

Of course, at night, there was a party. The subject was "signal lights". So who had a boy-/girlfriend or didn't want to meet a girl/boy put a red shirt, who wasn't shure if he/she wants to meet somebody put yellow and who was absolutely free put a green shirt. Of which colour do you think my shirt was? (check out the pics) ;-D
The party had drinking games (obligatory!!!), roll calls (AIESEC dances - awesome!), guitar playing and singing, football, pool swimming and so on...

The second day people who arent part of the executive board (vice presidents), did a funny championship. We had to run, swim, jump, do acrobatics an many more things...

I loved to meet all the new people of AIESEC Ribeirão!!! They are very receptive and help me in whatever I need. Since this event I went to many bars with them and had many interesting discussions. Thanks @RP!!!












Photos CdM - Outdoors



Montag, 5. April 2010

Casa das Mangueiras - Day 3

Experience 1

CdM arranged a place to work for the 29-year-old woman from the first day. We brought her to the interview. Problems: She has no bank account and no domicile on her name. Luckily this problems can be solved
There was a situation during the interview that showed me, how the most simple things for us can be difficult for others: The interviewer gave a form to the woman and the social assistant of CdM had to fill it out. The woman couldn't even distinguish the certificate of birth of her son from the one of her daughter...

Experience 2

Working in the recycling division of CdM with boys from 15 and Women and Men from the favelas: compression of cardboard, cord up huge bags with recycling material (2 people needed) and - the most interesting of all - recycling waste separation by hand -> decomposed salad, bread, spilled sauce and really flavoursome milk bottles ;-)
I liked the work, because I could talk with people from the poor communities.

Casa das Mangueiras - Day 2

Experience 1

Woman: is about 29 years old, with druged/HIV+ mother (now dead) and father that run away. She was the first girl in the Casa das Mangueiras (GdM), prostituted girls, was a drug dealer and consumer, has done armed hold-ups, spent 10 years in prision, can't read, can't write, has two children (~12years old) that live with two different aunts, has no job.
We brought her to school and the social assistant of the CdM talked with her teacher to motivate the woman.

Experience 2

Visiting a 13 years old new boy of CdM at home: living space ~12qm, he lives with 3 sisters (between 5 and 13 years old) and his grandmother, parents are in prision.
The 4 children told us about a boy of the neighbourhood who was killed the other day by 3 shots in the body and 4 in the head. They talked about it like it was the most common thing in the world. The sad thing is: for them it is day-to-day reality.
..

Sonntag, 28. März 2010

Casa das Mangueiras - Day 1

The NGO Casa das Mangueiras is a house, where children from poor families with involvement in crimes stay during the day, when they arent in school (morning or afternoon). They have history and portuguese lessons (many of the kids are illiterate) and different other activities as dancing/singing/theater (called: educative games and texts), photography, yoga (called: me and my body), arts and playing lessons (where they learn how to tinker and play with different toys).

Every days main activity is the work in the arts factory (where the kids produce recycled paper/books and candles), in the carpet factory (where they produce carpets with used cloths) and the backyard (where they plant and look after different plants, fruits and vegetables). The kids recieve a remuneration for their work so they adapt to have a legal income.

The first day I stayed in all the factorys to know the work and the children. I also played billard and soccer with them. The children were very curious and asked lots of question about Switzerland:
Do you have ... in Switzerland?
cemeterys
many policemen
jails
beds
snow
video games (Counter Strike, GTA)
soccer
snakes
Suzuki motorcycles
skorpions
limousines
hippopotamuses
beggers
beautiful girls

Do people surf in CH?
Is it cold there?
How do you come here, by bus? (Many of the kids haven't even SEEN an airplane)
Switzerland is near the USA, isn't it?

After the first day, I allready knew that I was going to love the internship at Casa das Mangueiras. The work people do there and the compassion they have for their work (inside and outside the CdM) is really impressive and motivating. The Children are so cute, lovely and intelligent. The highly difficult situations they live in combined with their innocence motivates even more to help them to work for a save future.