The International Child's Pastoral coordinator, Dr. Nelson Arns Neumann traveled to Unites States of America as a special guest in the Marquette Mission Week 2013, hosted by the Marquette University in Milwaukee, from February4th to 8th. The event, with the theme "The World Is Our Home", honors all those laureated by the Opus Prize granted to people who unite faith and entrepreneurship, develop social actions to reduce global problems such as poverty, hunger, disease and human rights violations.
Dr. Neumann participates as a representative of the founder of the Brazilian Child's Pastoral, Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann, awarded by the Opus Prize in 2006. In Milwaukee the ten winners of the award, created in 2004 by the Opus Prize Foundation will be gathered. Besides Brazil the other personalities awarded have been working in Haiti, Ecuador, Jamaica, India, Congo, Malawi, Morocco, Burundi and Tanzania
The agenda of the Marquette Mission Week is extensive and includes activities with students and faculty members, discussions and exchange of experiences with community leaders, social entrepreneurs and other stakeholders. Opus Prize winners will also meet with Mark Dybul, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The Child's Pastoral strategy focus the children and pregnant women in the community and it develops the work in Brazil and 21 other countries in Latin American, Africa and Asia. The work of the organization will be presented and discussed on several occasions during the week. As far as the worldwide total number of child deaths, at least 63% are caused by easily preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria, HIV and other infections. In a context that requires immediate and accessible solutions to populations at risk, there is great interest from the organizers and the audience in the international experience of the Child's Pastoral, especially how it transfers its methodology to the poorest countries.
The amount of USD 1 million awarded by Opus Prize has been invested since 2007 in 11 of the 21 countries where the organization takes its humanitarian action. Angola, Paraguay, Guatemala, Guinea Bissau, East Timor, Guinea, Philippines, Colombia, Bolivia, Honduras and Mozambique received resources to afford initial expenses and expand basic health, nutrition, education and citizenship in the poor communities.
Last year, the Child's Pastoral received the support of over eight different financial resources to ensure its international operations. According to Dr. Nelson Arns Neumann “The money is administered at the headquarters opened in Uruguay, otherwise the entity could not send money abroad." Because of the difficulties imposed by Brazilian legislation, in 2008, Dr. Zilda Arns created the International Pastoral da Criança to bring its successful experience to other poor countries.