Pastoral da Criança’s teach families how to take care of their children and identify the ones who need special care. They also work to reduce violence against women and children. Thanks to the work of the volunteers, families become part of a helping community, and can thus improve their own situation.

Every year, the volunteers save the lives of thousands of children. Where they work, 13 of 1,000 children die before they’re one year old and seven of 1,000 are under-nourished. In the rest of Brazil, 35 of 1,000 children die and 16 of 100 are under-nourished.

When Pastoral da Criança’s was commended by the World’s Children’s Prize in 2003, Brazil was one of the world’s most unequal countries - the gap between rich and poor is unbelievably wide. Pastoral’s volunteers visit families’ homes to see if their children are under-nourished. They arrange Weighing Days once a month to see if children are growing as they should. They teach families how to cook nutritious, cheap food, and how to prepare Pastoral’s nutritive powder, which is made of nuts, eggshells, cassava and powdered milk.

The volunteers also taught mothers to recognise the commonest symptoms of childhood illness. They helped them put together a ’household pharmacy’ from local herbal medicines and showed them how to prevent and cure diarrhoea by always boiling children’s water, and mixing water, salt and sugar to relieve diarrhoea. They also give support and advice to pregnant mothers and encourage parents to register and vaccinate their children. :

Photos: Tora Mårtens