DEVELOPMENT: Brazil Exports Initiatives that Benefit Children

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jul 22 2002 (IPS) - Brazil has accumulated enormous social problems and inequalities that seem impossible to resolve, but the South American giant is an exporter of poverty-fighting solutions, particularly of those that help children.

The Children’s Pastoral (Pastoral da Criança), an organisation founded by the Brazilian Catholic Bishops Conference 19 years ago, and the non-governmental Children’s Mission (Missao Criança), based in Brasilia, are two groups engaged in the transfer of “social technologies” to other countries.

The Brazilian government has nominated the Children’s Pastoral for the Nobel Peace Prize. The organisation was able to reduce infant mortality in the communities where it is active from 29 per 1,000 live births to 13 per 1,000, and has expanded its efforts to 14 countries.

Its national coordinator, doctor Zilda Arns Neumann, visited Angola in late June to step up the Pastoral activities begun in 1996, and which have been expanding rapidly since the end of that country’s civil war.

The low cost and great effectiveness of the methodology developed by the Pastoral is an ideal tool for fighting infant mortality and child malnutrition in impoverished communities and countries, agree those who have seen it in operation.

Follow-up for each child costs just a half-dollar a month, Arns told IPS. The low cost is possible because basic health services are provided by volunteers, food supplements utilise discarded but highly nutritious products, and a central role is given the dissemination of information and community mobilisation.

In addition to her organisation’s candidacy for the Nobel, Arns was chosen as Public Health Hero among 11 prize recipients from the Pan-American Health Organisation as it celebrated its centennial this year.

With such international recognition, the doctor hopes that the Pastoral’s strategy will turn into the basis for a “global programme”, multiplying its associations with governments and non- governmental organisations (NGOs) in other countries, as well as its application by other institutions.

It all began in 1983 when Arns organised an action of “concerted effort” in Florestópolis, a poor municipality in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná. At the time, 72 percent of the 14,700 residents made their livelihood from seasonal farm work.

Within one year, the programme slashed infant mortality from 127 per 1,000 to 28 per 1,000 live births, remembers Arns. Every girl and boy was accompanied by a “community leader”, as the Pastoral refers to its trained volunteers. Malnutrition also saw a sharp decline.

The results corroborated the effectiveness and feasibility of the “Pastoral technology”, whose expansion to other Brazilian regions has obtained support from the National Bishops Conference and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Today, the organisation tops 155,000 volunteers who cover 64 percent of Brazil’s 5,560 municipalities and attend to 1.64 million children, ranging from newborns to six-year-olds, as well as working with adults on literacy programmes and assisting the elderly.

Arns visited Angola for the first time in 1996, a guest of the Catholic bishop of Benguela, in the country’s southwest. She provided training for 17 women at the time, but today there are 507 community leaders responsible for more than 4,700 children, reported the doctor.

In addition, there are 196 volunteers in Luanda providing attention to 1,324 children, and an unknown number of such social leaders in the Angolan interior.

During her latest visit in June, with backing from the Brazilian foreign ministry, she reached an agreement with the local government to expand efforts to other provinces through training centres and the “multiplication” of leaders in Benguela and Luanda.

The civil war, extreme poverty and widespread disease created a tragic situation in Angola, says Arns. Infant mortality stands at 400 per 1,000 live births, half due to malaria. She is urging the fight against the epidemic must be included in the Pastoral activities.

Paraguay was the first Latin American country outside of Brazil in which the Children’s Pastoral took action, followed by another eight, including Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela.

In addition to Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique are the African countries benefiting from the programme. The Philippines and the youngest country in the world, East Timor, have recently begun receiving support from the Catholic organisation.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Mission, an NGO established four years ago, is working with several countries to implement the “bolsa-escola” (school subsidy programme), a successful effort launched by the Brasilia municipal government under Cristovam Buarque (1995-1998) and now a nationwide initiative.

The subsidy insures a minimum monthly income for poor families that keep their children aged seven to 14 in school.

A bolsa-escola programme of the Ecuadorian government is already benefiting 40,000 families, Marcelo Aguiar, head of the Children’s Mission, told IPS. The goal of the initiative in Ecuador is to reach 286,000 families and 575,000 children.

In two African countries, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe, pilot programmes are under way for some 100 families, which receive 20 dollars monthly in a bolsa-escola-type initiative.

The bolsa-escola effort is growing beyond the actions of the Mission. It has been recommended by the United Nations Conference- Education for All and by the Ibero-American Summit.

The main problem, says Aguiar, lies in obtaining funding for its implementation in poor countries.