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| From Mondays to Fridays, Erivalda da Silva walks about one hour from her home to the to the co-op where she makes costume jewellery and embroidery, the 21-year old artist passes Carlos Manoel, 4. There, in a facility holding up to 800 children, both kids receive of Teotônio Vilela, a small city of 40,000 inhabitants, 70 km from Maceió (AL). On the way by the Child Education Centre where she leaves her two kids: Carlos Eduardo, aged 3, and five balanced meals, and are looked after by teachers and medical staff. |
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The daily life of Erivalda and her children was quite different just two years ago. “Back then, I didn’t work, and we ate bean sauce and manioc flour twice a day”, she recalls. Everything changed when the city’s Council for Child and Adolescent Rights submitted a project to be part of the Real Friend Programme.
Public management
Despite our investment in the region, these improvements would not have been possible without the involvement of the community of Teotônio Vilela. The mothers, for example, recognised the opportunity and formed, also in partnership with Real Friend, the Society Community Association of the Mothers of the Life Project. The civic government invested in modern facilities suitable to operate a daycare centre.
The next step is the approval by the City Council of a municipal law to transform the Life Project into public policy, which means the City will start running the daycare, using public funds.
“This way it becomes official no administration will be able to interrupt the project, which has changed the lives of people here”, says Giselda Lins, a project coordinator. |
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