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.
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