CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Services aimed at children and adolescents, from early childhood onwards, meet the local needs of the communities where they are located, in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Thus, they have specific actions, ranging from the promotion of after school hours to child and family care.

SEFRAS Criança – Peri, located in Jardim Peri Alto, in the far north of São Paulo, works with 120 children and adolescents (6 to 16 years old) in the after school hours and offers workshops, conversation circles, cultural tours and participatory activities with themes linked to politics, society, citizenship, culture and sport.

It also promotes the strengthening of family and community connections by bringing parents, family members and guardians closer to the spaces for discussion and deliberation of the service for the construction and constitution of the Regional Forum for the Defense of the Human Rights of Children and Adolescents

SEFRAS Perfect Joy - Light - located between the Luz and Tiradentes metro stations, in the central territory - is the first service in the municipality of São Paulo aimed at coexistence and care for homeless children and adolescents. Open daily from 8am to 8pm (including holidays). There are two fronts of work with the objective of composing the municipal policy for comprehensive care for children and adolescents living on the streets:
Specialized Center for Children and Adolescents (CECA) - Guarantees reception and basic care (bathing, adequate food, rest and other immediate demands), recreational and socio-educational activities and technical assistance with social workers, psychologists and lawyers.
Child and Adolescent Reference Center (CRCA) - provides assistance to children, adolescents and their families, coordinates and forwards demands with the territories' socio-assistance network, in addition to training work with actors of the Rights Guarantee System. The technical team, made up of social workers, psychologists, lawyers, researchers and a communication assistant, aims to carry out assistance in conjunction with the CECA team, mobilize and strengthen territories with campaigns to consolidate or build child protection spaces and to teenagers, carry out training and assist in improving public policies aimed at the public it serves.

A work similar to that of Peri is carried out in the city of Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, in Vila São José. The Franciscan Service for Living with Children and Adolescents – Gente Viva is a pedagogical work aimed at 120 children and adolescents (4 to 18 years old). Based on activities carried out in workshops, its objective is to make the participants themselves awaken to their potential and to their creative and productive capacities, based on the context in which they live and, thus, to be able to develop an awareness of political participation, defense and fight for rights and dignity.

The São Gabriel and Santa Clara de Assis Children's Centers, both in Duque de Caxias, welcome and care for 55 children (0 to 4 years old) in protected and healthy environments. The actions carried out in the centers enable a dignified childhood with their families, who participate and collaborate in this process through meetings, workshops, parties and other cultural and leisure activities, in an extremely vulnerable area.

Also in Rio de Janeiro, SEFRAS works in the cities of Tanguá and Duque de Caxias with a care work for children, also in early childhood, and adolescents in highly vulnerable territories. Nowadays ,Franciscan facilities serve children in neighborhoods dominated by violence and drug trafficking, where families are at great social risk – including cases of child malnutrition recorded.