In these years - thank to long distance adoption - life of many
children has changed

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Primary education

Brazil : educational centers

Since the beginning of the eighties, AVSI has been supporting in Brazil a number of educational activities aimed at welcoming children and adolescents living in marginal urban areas. In the run of time, these simple charitable actions have turned into real educational centers with a civil and social dignity recognized both by local communities and by public institutions. They are 20 centers in the cities of Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador Bahia, Sao Paulo, Brasilia, attended by some 3000 children and adolescents aged between zero and 14. Approaching the educational aspects of children in high risk and vulnerability situations, they provide an educational function also for the adults of the community. From the nursery school for babies to after-school support for children of the primary schools, to recreational activities for adolescents up to the age they may go to work, the care of children has some distinctive methodological aspects : 1. Attention to the person as a whole and enhancement of his/her talents and bents: the child is welcomed for what he is. Teachers take care of him from the point of view of his/her identity, health, family relations, violence and distress conditions, translating the principle of the centrality of the person into concrete actions. · The child shower, for instance, is not only an act of hygienic care, but also of exclusive love, though which the child becomes conscious. often for the first time, of his/her own person and body. · Breakfast and lunch do not only represent the child's unique significant meals, but also the idea of order and of rules of life. · The after-school support work, which was started to limit retirement from school often generating return illiteracy, has a constructive effect since it opens the doors on a world whose access is denied to the children living in the favelas. This activity implies a strict collaboration with the school attended by the child, in order to make a complementary work. · Recreational activities (theatre, dance, movie) are structured in order to introduce children to the sense of beauty and infinite, fully unknown to a child grown up in distress conditions. · the care of the person from the health, sanitation and nourishment points of view is faced in a systematic way, through the work of pediatricians and nourishment specialists. · In the most serious case (violence, exclusion, serious diseases and undernourishment) , the child is accompanied by activating a solidarity network and - where necessary the social services. · Prevention of children's work is not so much the result of a control activity, but rather the outcome of strengthening the personality of the child and of the search of a deep meaning for his/her life, leading him/her to refuse easy money and violent exploitation.

2. Enhancement and involvement of family : the child is never an isolated individual. He is always integrated into a family context, which although disrupted in 80% of cases, is however rich of significant presence. Often unexpectedly, the educational work with the child acts indirectly also on his/her mother and family, who feel the influence of the experience of order, beauty and love made by the child at the educational center. Along with this "effect", the work with the family develops through calls, listening and talking to the mother, thus creating a relation strengthening the environment where the child grows and re-.awakening in the mother and adults the sense of the dignity of the person.

3. Development of a solidarity network: the educational work tends to strengthen around the family a network of relations with persons and institutions reducing its vulnerability. When adults and other subjects present become aware of their responsibilities, the process of free undertaking accelerates thus fostering development in the community.

4. The Center as a point of reference for the community : in this educational work directed to the families, centers have become an active subject of the community, where they carry out also activities for prevention and human development. The educational center becomes therefore a sort of access channel of the community to the services of the "formal" town.

In order to enhance these educational experiences, AVSI is implementing projects fostering capacity building and qualification of these centers. The aim is to share their expertise and give then higher visibility also at international level.

Albania (educational centers)

The economic, but mainly cultural and moral dimensions of poverty make life of children in Albania very difficult. They are living in the streets where violence wins (robberies and vandalism). Many of them handle weapons and had a loss in the family due to revenge actions, disrupting families and the social context. Many families are split as a consequence of more or less regular expatriations. Health and sanitation represent a critical issue: diarrhoea and intestinal infections caused by food gone bad, or by undernourishment or incorrect diet are very frequent, along with skin infections due to poor sanitation. Very few houses have water supply and toilet. Electric power is often failing; heating is missing and in many areas of Albania temperature in winter may go well below 0°C. In general, families have many children, at least 4 or 5. Basic school has 8 years duration (from 7 to 14) but is often not attended by children living in the farthest villages. Teachers are often not prepared and not motivated and children cannot learn. It seems that teachers have a particular attention only for the respect of discipline: wooden sticks and expulsion from the classroom are still used. Some classes have no more male students, all of them having been expelled. Girls aged between 12 and 14 are often molested - and sometimes raped - in the school environment, also because they are coming from villages other than the place where they attend the school. The need for education is therefore emerging, not only meant as the capacity to respect the rules and values of civil society, but also as recovery of traditions and therefore discovery of one's identity as person belonging to a people. There is very little room for freedom and proposal, where a young person may get emancipated and gain his/her own freedom: the only viable perspective seems to be that of leaving Albania. AVSI has been working in Albania since 1997 and, since the very start, developed projects in favor of children in difficult circumstances, with educational and training activities. In particular, in addition to the reconstruction of five primary and nursery schools, AVSI has been supporting the establishment of 20 educational centers, on the whole Albanian territory, including day centers and nursery schools. The general objective of AVSI's projects is to improve the quality of life of children, through the services offered and through teaching and recreational activities, in order to prevent exclusion from the original family and limit irregular expatriations, deviance and psycho-social distress. Training received a particular care. since education is only possible with an adult subject, directly and personally implied in a relationship: the child may live, grow and learn only if there is an adult introducing him/her to the reality. Training activities enabled to qualify operators, providing them with the skills and tools necessary to promote and try new educational paths, to get hold of their own identity, to design and imagine a possible future for their children, linked to their own history and belonging.

No intervention has been an attempt to substitute the Albanian people, no project has been building its own center or school; on the contrary AVSI rallied to develop and equip to the best existing structures, either public or private, in order to meet the needs of the local reality. In fact the priority has been on having local counterparts acquire the managerial skills useful and required to reach an independent design and financial capacity.

Nigeria

Saint Peter and Paul Nursery & Primary School - The Seed Remedial School

Nigeria, the giant of Africa, with its population of more than 120 million people, oil producer, after a long period of military government that generated economical and political corruption, has changed in a democratic government. This event opened new perspectives in international relationships and in the management of the country, but has brought out a very poor situation in the last years both in health and educational fields. This situation is evident in Lagos, the most big metropolis in Nigeria, with 10 millions people living in different social and economics positions: a part of few and very rich people and a wide part of people that lives of rubbish or in a room without light and water. The school facilities, from nursery to secondary, are insufficient: the classrooms are crowded, the stationery is very expensive and the teachers are not trained adequately as their salary is low. The main consequences are teacher absenteeism and, often, strikes that affect the academic level of the students. Teaching methods don't follow the new reality of the society, for example the corporal punishment is included in all the school rules, starting from the nursery to the secondary school. AVSI has been active in Nigeria since 1988 with main projects in the health sector, starting from concrete needs encountered. In recent years it also developed educational projects. Particularly, in the suburban area of Lagos, AVSI has started a nursery and primary school to support the education of the fishermen children in a village on the Lagoon. The fishermen come from the Benin Republic, they speak only their traditional language: Egun. Actually, 400 children are registered in the school; the children are both from the fishermen village and neighbouring villages. The education is focused on the "person" in his/her totality; thus great emphasis is put on learning English, that is the key to introduce the child to social life. At the same time, through other curricular and extracurricular activities (drama, art, sport) we try to build a complete personality. We try to involve the parents in the educational process of their children through a daily relationship with teachers, health education courses and organising parties and feasts. The children, coming from different backgrounds, live in a context of violent tribal fights. To improve their living together, we try to promote social and cultural activities inside and outside the school, enhancing the value of traditional songs and dances and attending to many events out of the village. Looking at the person as "one", we realised that one of the main needs is the health care. Hence we have started a health care program in the school, in co-operation with St. Kizito clinic (AVSI project): check of the health of children, distribution of drugs, treatment of undernourished children, health care courses for parents and AIDS prevention. Teachers are constantly trained working as a team, giving their contribution in the management and attending to refresh courses. We organise refresh courses in co-operation with the educational authorities (Local Government) and many teachers of the government school attend our courses. When children complete their primary education, the relationship and educational care continue: we try to have stability in it. In recent years we have started the activities of a Remedial School, in the same suburban area, for an educational and academic support to the students of the secondary school. The Remedial School offers: lessons in many subjects in the evening, a good equipped laboratory for scientific subjects; a library for the students that cannot afford the expensive cost of the textbooks; a reading room for the students (and they are many) who don't have at home a place where to study; sport and extracurricular activities (excursion, choir, magazine, film…) to assure a global growing up of the personality and to develop friendship and respect among different ethnic and religious backgrounds and tribes . All the children that complete their primary education can attend to the activities of the Remedial School, finding continuity with the educational proposal received .