Where we work

Picolino Circus

The circus was initiated over twenty years ago in Salvador Bahia by Anselmo Serrat, and made up of young people with an excellent training and experience in the circus arts. Since 1992, in collaboration with representatives from the Agata Smeralda Project, social workers and local psychologists, there has grown a great opportunity within the circus environment to salvage children, but above all adolescents, traumatised by the often violent life of the favelas. Now over one hundred youngsters take part each year in courses organized by the Circus in collaboration with the Agata Smeralda Project.

Centre of Assistance for Children suffering from Cerebral Palsy (NACPC)

The NACPC is a multi-disciplinary centre, directed by Daniela Matsuda, and situated in Salvador-Bahia. It offers various treatments to children who, as well as suffering with illness, also come from particularly needy families who therefore cannot afford the necessary health treatments. Currently the Institute hosts 170 children and adolescents and its services (completely free), consist of: child neurology, physiotherapy, audio-phonology, pedagogy, psychology and musical therapy. A department offering occupational therapy is planned for the future, with the intention of becoming autonomous.

Institute for Blind Children of Salvador

Resp. Sig.ra Silvia Maria Figueiredo Baptista. The Institute for the Blind of Bahia was founded in 1933 to offer hospitality to blind people of all ages who were found begging in the streets of Salvador - Bahia. Today it is a residential structure which, with the help of the Agata Smeralda Project, freely welcomes children between the ages of 5 and 18 from all of Bahia. The centre specializes in the treatment of ophthalmic illnesses and in an independent education for the blind.

Ecological - Environmental School

In Joia do Rio (Salvador) directed by Fred Dantas. The school, as well as offering children a primary. elementary and secondary education, also teaches environmental and naturalistic themes.

Family home for children of prisoners - "Nova Semente Centre"

Resp. Sister Adele Pezzone (Missionary Nuns of Christ the Redeemer). The centre accepts children and adolescents whose parents are in
prison and who otherwise would have nobody to take care of them. The centre has over 100 kids of which a third, the smallest and those with
both parents in prison, reside at the centre. Most of them go to nursery, literacy school and take part in after-school activities.
Inside the school there is also a refectory. There are many educational activities, all supervised by teachers and psychologists.

Obras Sociais Irma Dulce Association

Located within the Hospital for the Poor in Salvador - Bahia. It was founded to help children and adolescents suffering from disability, in a state of abandonment and/or need.

Instituiçao Beneficente Conceiçao Macedo, in the historic centre of Salvador - Bahia

Born thanks to the efforts of Maria Conceiçao, nurse and manager of the centre, it wishes to offer concrete assistance to those ill or carrying the HIV/AIDS virus, as well as their children, often abandoned by their familes and society.

Evoluçao Association

Founded in 1984 to offer help to children and adolescents with behavioural problems, coming from poor families who cannot afford the necessary treatment.

"Lar Vida" Welcome Centre

Directed by Maria Cristina Cordeiro Caldas, situated in Sete de Abril, near the airport of Salvador. It is a non-profit civil institution founded in 1985 to help children and adolescents suffering with disability, in state of abandonment and/or need.

(Sister Ancelle of the Christ Child)

Group 1

"DOM LUCAS MOREIRA NEVES" Integral Education Project for Girls

This is a literacy school for young girls, who would otherwise have been denied the possibility to study simply because of their sex. Theirs is a culture in which women do not have the right to education and an area of much immigration, in which the languages and dialects are numerous and the possibility of communication between various ethnicities extremely slim, mainly due to a lack of a common langauge. The school is equipped with a kitchen where the children's meals are prepared and large covered areas for various after-school activities.

Group 2

As above except open to children of both sexes.

Group 3

School of Feneskedougou

Feneskedougou is a village positioned in the middle of the forest, and the school was opened by the Sisters in collaboration with the chiefs of the neighbouring villages. It has a refectory and large outdoor spaces with canopies for activities.

(Sisters of the Franciscan All Saints Missionary)

"BABY SADAN" welcome house at Panachepally

The "Baby Sadan" welcome house is situated near the town of Panachepally, in the district of Kottayam, and the state of Kerala (in the south-west of India), and constitutes two structures: the orphanage, which hosts abandoned children and some teenage mothers, and an elementary school, attended not only by the resident children but also by poor children from the area.
 

(Sisters Daughters of Mary Queen of the Apostles)

The orphanage, named "Alama, Ya Kitumaini" (sign of hope), is located in the north-east region of the state of Congo, close to the city of Bukavu. It originally hosted children who had lost their mothers due to lack of post-natal treatment. Today it also hosts many orphans who have lost their parents through war. The structure itself is small, for this reason many children are temporarily sent to reliable foster families, helped by the nuns with food, clothes and health services. There are also after-school activities for the older children who are not adopted or reintegrated into their "extended families".

(Missionary Sisters Daughters of the Calvary)

Our Lady of the Pilar School

This is a girls school situated inside the old city. Needy children and girls are accepted from the ages of pre-school to second year middle school. It is a full-time school with refectory.

(Passionist Sisters of St. Paul of the Cross)

The "Community of the Divine Mercy" is found in the diocese of Ijebu-Ode, a few kilometres from Lagos. It consists of two structures: the "House of Education" and the "House for Abandoned Children". The first structure consists of a residential home with connected laboratories for professional training for the oldest kids (still being realized). The second, also residential, welcomes the smallest children and is also open to those from the area without the means for schooling.

(Oblate Fathers of Immaculate Maria)

Refugee Camps in Colombo and Negombo

Two refugee camps, one on the outskirts of Colombo, the other in Negombo, a coastal town close to the capital. Refugees are organized into wooden huts in each of which are housed several families victims of the tsunami. There are other wooden structures designed for common activities mainly for children, of which a nursery and a literacy school.

(Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Christ Child)

School of Bajze

The centre consists of a nursery and elementary school situated in the Sisters' convent. School meals and after-school activities are planned. There is also a small but efficient emergency medical centre, equipped with modern diagnosis apparatus , and available not only to the schools' children but to the whole town. The Sisters also organize educational services for the families of children, on the themes of hygiene, helath and pedagogy.