KIDS Worldwide South America

Adriano was our priority this year. Adriano has learning difficulties. After taking Adriano years to specialists who told us that Adriano was fine, Melissa Vargo (our new psychologist) did some advanced tests and found out that Adriano has profound learning difficulties. Adriano is a smart kid who just needs the right methodology to learn. Adriano often showed aggressive behaviour due to frustration at school and wrong assessments of teachers and specialists. Now Melissa found a specialized organization in Duque de Caxias who offer special education for Adriano. They don’t charge us but we have to pay for transport. Thanks to our volunteers who take Adriano every morning 6 o’clock in the morning and the education fund Adriano now is attending the school every day and is finally making progress. Adriano leaves 6 o’clock in the morning and comes back at 12:00 o’clock. He has lunch and than goes to normal school in Xerem. For the first time in his life, Adriano is making progress at school.

Our next investment is Uderson. Uderson is now 15 years old. Today at Casa do Caminho all teenagers above 15 need to have a job, a course or work at Casa do Caminho. This to prepare them for an independent life. Uderson has great talents for drawing and design. We found a design course in Xerem which provides Uderson with job opportunities when he finishes the course. It is an AutoCAD course where he learns to make professional designs. Big brazilian companies like PetroBras really need people with these skills. Uderson just started recently, so it is now wait and see if he can handle such a difficult course.

Our newest adolescents Clayton, Lucas Adelino and David are too young to do a professional course but we want our younger teenagers to be active in the community. They love to play soccer. They all dream of becoming professional soccer players. Of course we make sure they don’t dream too far away and make sure that there primary focus is school. All 3 asked us to be allowed to play soccer in a new soccer school opened in Xerem. It is a well known school which has a monthly fee.

Our teenagers Davi, Douglas and Ewerson now work in our new organic farming project “Clube Verde” www.clube-verde.org. It is the first project at Casa do Caminho where teenagers successfully learn a broad variety of skills in farming, and selling products. They gain real job responsibilities thanks to the initiative of the project leader Juan Bautista. The results of the project are already overwhelming and highly promising. Our teenagers have grown in self-esteem and maturity enormously. They also earn a percentage of the products which they sell. Juan Bautista wanted to take the teenagers to several Universities to broaden their views and show the teenagers that they know as much about organic farming as university students. We decided to support this idea and pay for transport for the “clube verde crew”. 

Deminson is our last investment. Deminson is 9 years old and was evaluated special at school. The same institute that Adriano attends to also invited Deminson to do some IQ tests to find out if Deminson is highly skilled and has a very high IQ. Casa do Caminho’s objective is to stimulate kids to their full potential and since Deminson really wanted to do these tests, we decided to take over the costs.

We like to thank all those people who have sold calendars and cards last year. Thanks to you we were able to invest in these children and teenagers.

We hope that in 2010 – 2011 we can continue to invest in our children and teenagers. The Christmas action is vital. Without the income Adriano can’t continue his course and we won’t be able to invest in other courses for our teenagers. We have many girls and boys turning 14 and 15 year who would like to start their professionalization course too.  

If you want to order christmas cards, please contact:  purple_ann[a]hotmail.com