Santarém – Brasil

HelpAlliance supports the charity organization Seara e.V. by financing the building of a vocational training center in Santarém, a town in the Brazilian rainforest on the banks of the Amazon. Young socially disadvantaged mothers shall obtain a professional training in order to be able to ensure a regular income for themselves and their families.

The German organization “SEARA e.V. – a future for the children” significantly supports and finances in close cooperation the institution of SEARA in the Brazilian rainforest town Santarém at the Amazon. SEARA takes care of the great number of mal- and undernourished infants and toddlers and their families. Malnutrition at the age of one up to five years has especially serious consequences for the children’s physical and mental development. Their brains become undernourished and are damaged with a lasting effect. Later on, these deficiencies are not recoverable. A life in destitution is predetermined. Every year SEARA takes in 140 children in its daycare center, who at the beginning are mostly in a very bad condition. They are cared for healthwise and pedagogically and are served four wholesome meals a day. So they gain their strength very quickly. Only after a few weeks in the daycare center you will see them smile again. Very quickly their physical and mental development emerges, they begin to play and frolic. Now their future has a chance.

About 50 brothers and sisters between the age of 6 and 12 are looked after and supported after school and over the weekend on a regular basis. So the decline into a life on the streets is prevented.

Helping at the daycare center and attending workshops on nutrition, hygiene, education and birth control, the mothers of the SEARA children learn how to have a healthy diet for themselves and their children for little money and on natural resources of the Amazon region and how they are able to improve their standard of living.

In November 2007 HelpAlliance provided support for SEARA for the first time with the building of a vocational training center which is located close to the daycare center. Here the young mothers with a difficult social background and whose children are enrolled at the daycare center are provided with a qualified and officially recognized vocational training and therefore are able to ensure a constant income for themselves and their families. Courses are offered for manicure and pedicure, manufacturing of hammocks, textile painting, sewing, cooking with home products, as well as the production of alternative medication. The courses are enhanced by important subjects such as pricing and price negotiations. If necessary, the participants will also be assisted in applying for a microloan.

The Amazon – the area of the world most abundant with water, infinite richness in flora and fauna – and nevertheless boundless and increasing poverty has to be endured by the people who live here. Professional training is the only bottom line for the young mothers to break through the cycle of poverty.