Recent statistics have shown that in Brazil there are over 25 million children who live in extremely deprived conditions, a vast majority of them living upon ‘favelas’ (shanty towns). Eight million of those 25 million children live rough on the streets and a third of those eight million children will be killed before they reach the age of 18 through gang violence.
‘My Father’s House’ is an NGO project working with these children in the north east of Brazil in a city called Olinda, just north of Recife. The project is part of the Anglican Church of Living Waters which is situated in a favela at the side of the city’s huge open air rubbish dump. Many of the people who live in this favela find their food and material to build their shacks from the actual rubbish dump. Many children are sent to work on the dump by their families instead of going to school. Some of the children have had to leave their families due to abuse (both physical and sexual) or simply because their parents can’t, or don’t want to, look after them. Fairly quickly these young children realise that selling cocaine is a better ‘career’ than picking through rubbish for a living and so join the drug trafficking gangs of which there are many on the favelas. Obviously a career in a gang is a very dangerous one (boys as young as 10 carry guns) and eventually their lives become endangered either from rival gangs or from their own gang if they have done something wrong. This is a very serious situation since statistics from just our favela alone show that, on average; four young people are killed each week from gang violence.
My Father’s House works in 3 main ways to prevent this from happening:
1) The Safe House – This is a big house in the city of Olinda which can house up to 12 boys at a time. Some boys need to leave the favela due to various reasons, either their lives are in danger or due to family issues. Currently there are 10 boys (aged between 8 – 16) who live full time in the house. Here they have the opportunity of education and to change their lives. We try to work closely with their families in the hope that one day the family might be reunited. Basically, the project tries to save the boys both physically, from their surroundings and dangers, and spiritually through faith in Jesus Christ.
2) The Christian Centre of Family Support – Is the first point of call for many children on the favela. This is a school which provides education support for over 150 children a day and which also provides activities to keep the kids off the streets. Relationships are built with the children and the families which enables us to recognize which children need the most help.
3) The Living Waters Institute – usually referred to as ‘the Farm’. This is a converted farm which currently is used for camps for the children. We’d like to use it full time, perhaps for older teenagers (16+) who are seriously in danger from the gangs, i.e. gang members who have decided to try and leave the gangs and change their lives.
Over the years we have relied on English short term volunteers and teams who come over and spend some time with us in Brazil helping us in this work. It’s a fantastic experience for both sides; for the boys to realise that someone cares for them so much that they’re prepared to travel half of the globe to be with them; and for the volunteer whose eyes are opened to the need, not just in Brazil, but the entire world. Some English people have decided to stay – Ian Meldrum, who first began the project, has been here for over 30 years and I, myself, first came as a short term volunteer 5 years ago and stayed ever since.
The work in Brazil is hard but is very rewarding as we see changes and renewed hope in the lives of the children. It is these changes that encourage us daily in the battles that we face. Perhaps an example which sums this up is the following; Jonathan was one of our boys who spent 10 months with us in the project. He was involved with the gangs and was eventually shot and killed by the gangs when he ran away from the project – he was just 13 years old. The Bible says that the Devil comes to steal, destroy and to kill and that is exactly what he is doing to the lives of these children; he steals their lives, destroys their lives and ultimately kills them; and the children steal, destroy and kill in return. But Jesus says, in John’s gospel, that he came ‘so that they might have life – and life to the full.’ This is why My Father’s House and Living Waters Church exists – to try and show this great truth to the families and children that we meet.
In York, on the 14th of November, there will be an event to raise funds for this project. See the flyer on the side and if you would like to come, please get in touch.
Written by Andy Roberts
Tags: Andy Roberts, brazil, brazilian, cross-cultural, Living Waters Church, Mission, My Father's House, olinda, street children
December 15, 2009 at 8:44 pm |
[...] first anniversary of the death of Jonathan Romario Alves da Santana, one of the ‘old’ boys of My Father’s House project, who at the age of 13 was brutally murdered by being shot 5 times in the head by a gang who had [...]