Maria Lucia Uribe and Fred Nyabera, representatives of the Arigatou International
The eradication of child poverty and the prevention of violence against children were the themes of an international meeting last Saturday (August, 24) at the Child's Pastoral, in Curitiba, Brazil.
The event was attended by two guests who are leaders in the field: Maria Lucia Uribe - Executive Director of Arigatou International in Geneva, Switzerland; and Fred Nyabera - Director of the End Child Poverty Coalition in Nairobi, Kenya. Arigatou International is a partner of Child's Pastoral in the development of the 'E-spirituality' project, which focuses on reducing child violence through spirituality.
During the meeting, the executive director of Arigatou International explained that, following the implementation of the pilot project, the initiative is now in the evaluation phase. The project will then be expanded.
“What we're doing is unique. We're going to create a model to use all over the world. We want to put spiritual development at the center of each child's integral development. We would like to thank the Child's Pastoral for their partnership in this work,” said Maria Lucia Uribe.
For his part, Fred Nyabera explained that eradicating child poverty requires holistic work, involving both spiritual values and the causes of poverty, such as inequality, unemployment, corruption, waste and violence.
“When we think about eradicating poverty, we know it's a big thing, it can be scary. I believe that maybe we can't change the whole world, but we can change the world for a child. And we must do everything we can,” said the director of the End Child Poverty Coalition.
Priscila do Rocio, a pedagogue from the Child's Pastoral, commented on the effectiveness of the project for the participating families. “We can see a change in behavior. There are mothers and fathers who have told us that before it was normal to slap kids to educate them, which they no longer do.”
Families who took part in the project also shared some of their experiences:
“During the project meetings we talked about how we were educating our children and the difficulties we had. We learned to listen to our children. We would like to have more meetings to continue these conversations,” said Roseli Aparecida Lopes da Silva, from one of the families in Campo Largo, Brazil.
The event was also attended by the coordinator of International Child's Pastoral, Maria das Graças Gervásio, the national coordinator of Child's Pastoral, Maria Inês Monteiro de Freitas, religious authorities such as the Archbishop of Curitiba, Dom Antônio Peruzzo, and Father Marcus Barbosa Guimarães, representing the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, as well as facilitators and families participating in the E-spirituality project.
The E-spirituality project
The tool “Nurturing children's spiritual development in the early years” is an information kit launched by Arigatou International at the Vatican in November 2022. The project is the fruit of the International Consortium on Nurturing Values and Spirituality in Early Childhood for the Prevention of Violence.
International Child's Pastoral is participating in the process of developing this toolkit in Brazil, along with organizations in Mexico, India and Pakistan.
In Brazil, the toolkit is called E-spirituality and has been adapted in Portuguese for the Child's Pastoral app and website. The kit takes the form of educational material and provides guidance on spirituality, interactions and activities that families can develop with children.
In addition to the educational material, the pilot project was applied in person to around 40 volunteer families in the cities of Cuiabá, Florianópolis, Campo Largo and Guaratuba. The facilitators share the contents of the kit with the families, create dynamics, provide guidance on children's rights and talk about spirituality.