9. Methodology, Evaluation, Planning

A. Methodology

It is not easy to co-ordinate the programs for the formation of minors in situations of abuse, exploitation and sexual tourism. It should be integral, varied and follow rigorous norms. Saint Monica’s Home proposes social inclusion following the directions of the Plan of Rights of Family and Community Living. For this there are four programs:

• Semi-open Formation in Ceara Cove.
• Refuge House Saint Monica’s Home.
• Formation of adjusted young people on the outskirts of CEU.
• Diversified network working with the organizations present in CEU and in Ceara Cove.

1. Semi-open program of formation

The semi-open programs of Formation in Saint Monica’s Home were the first to be put in place, and rely on three years of experience. They look after the boarding, formation, assessment, accompaniment, and guidance of the minors towards other programs in the communities where they live. The social educators of the Saint Monica’s Home work together with the social assistance services. Based on the studies of the Teaching the Peoples’, the figure of the “street educator” creates situations where minors feel impelled to act, and discover reality. It is a methodology proposed by Paulo Freire, who advises the promotion of values and integral formation through informal education, outside of school.

In order to educate these minors they have to be made to see the injustices that they suffer, at the same time as they rediscover themselves as tutorial, social, cultural, cognitive, ethical and political subjects, with rights. The social educator helps them to recuperate their humanity which was stolen from them. The social educator is an agent of change, dynamic, and a discoverer of all that is around. He helps the adolescent to de autonomous, to open his eyes in order to understand the world, to be critical about the situation in which he has born into, and to want to transform it. He shows him ways where, in a group, with another type of “friends” he can be happier. His speciality is to listen, to create dialogue, to propose, to accept the minor as he is, to be his helper, and to teach him to trust.

The activities that the social educators carry out in Saint Monica’s Home are the monthly visits, including during the holidays of the child residents to their homes. They also prepare monthly reunions with these families and contacts with school centers and businesses.

2. Refuge house Saint Monica’s Home

On the 27th of August they started the first phase of the construction in the physical location where Saint Monica’s Home has put the refuge house, in the CEU. The victims of abuse, and/or commercial sexual exploitation have little probability of receiving an adequate treatment from the public administration. The Report of the Investigative Commission for the Municipal Parliament of Fortaleza on Sexual Tourism shows the abandonment of these institutional obligations, omitting their protective mandate. Many of these young girls and adolescents, in the case of being detained by public order forces, are taken back to their family contexts. Such contexts are promoters of risk or indifferent to potential risk, and thus facilitate their return to sexual tourism.

Following the recommendations of the National Plan for Promotion, Protection and Defence of the Rights of Children and Adolescents Living Together in the Family and Community, Saint Monica’s Home is an alternative. Especially when the rights of young girls are seen to be threatened or violated by action or omission by part of society, the State or those immediately responsible.

In Saint Monica’s Home we create a new and different alternative to the minors’ centers which already exist in Ceara Cove for adolescents; because we believe they require something more than mere prevention in their local environment. In order to fulfil all the legal requirements, the young girls’ residence will be temporary: the internment will not last for more than three years. After this time, if the minor is not ready or their social context continues to be of high risk, the Counsellor Guardian or the corresponding court will take a decision over their future. In all cases, when they have turned eighteen, they will have to leave the Home. But they will not lose contact with their original families (save the existence of a judicial order against this), with visits by the resident to their homes and their family to the Home.

3. Formation of the adjusted young

A third type of programs will be for children and adolescents who are resident on the outskirts of CEU, and who will attend the workshops of professional formation and cultural and leisure spaces in exchange for a small feel. Also we will sign agreements with public health companies, easing the specialized sanitary care for the community spaces (prenatal nursing, psychology, paediatrics, etc.).

The presence of these adjusted young people will create a space of living together which will eliminate prejudices and social exclusions.

4. Diversified network

The diversified network working will allow for the close collaboration of Saint Monica’s Home with the different companies that work with minors in Ceara Cove and its districts. Its purpose is to combine efforts and guarantee the important attention that the young girls need.

We will also take advantage of the CEU context, with all the advantages of a social environment, where the common good will be attended to. Especially intense is the collaboration with the Minors House St. Michael the Archangel that works with street children in an internal regimen. With this center we will share formation, professional, leisure, and cultural spaces.

The existence of various social projects in the CEU eases collaboration and widens the diversity of the available formation. The Saint Monica’s Home has integrated itself in the mission and philosophy of the CEU, making it its own and linking with all the projects that form part of it, which implies the disposition of more physical and practical resources.

The network extends itself to the preventive and welfare organizations in Ceara Cove. With these organizations we will have to discern which minors need to temporally leave their environments and live in Saint Monica’s Home. The social street educators from Saint Monica’s Home are present in some activities realized by these centers and schools. They will maintain contact with the families in the different places of origin.

The Saint Monica’s Home has already entered in contact and arrived at agreements with a diverse number of institutions:

• Center Mary Mother of Life: 360 adolescents at risk, with some pregnant or already mothers;
• Small Citizen Center: social-education tasks, recreation and school support with 60 children and adolescents;
• Living Together Center Reborn in Hope: a yearly group of between 200 and 250 minors, in prevention of abuse and sexual exploitation;
• People’s School Lino Allegri: 80 children (boys and girls) between 4 and 7 years old, against school truancy;
• Infant Pastoral Care: physical well-being for new-borns and children between 0 and 6 years old;
• Minors Pastoral Center: minor residents from the streets, in situations of abuse and/or sexual exploitation, in trouble with the law, and family conflict;
• Missionary Group of Life in the Pastoral area of Ceara Cove: make the Church present in the poorest zones of the district;
• Joint Group of Pastoral Social Care in Ceara Cove: organize social activities; composed of representatives of the six base communities and the institutes, movements, and groups which work socially;
• Reference Centers for Social Assistance (CRAS) from Ceara Cove: of public title, attend marginalized families with projects of income generation;
• SEBRAI (Brazilian Service of Support for Small Businesses): co-operative course of needlework for women;
• NGO Aquitabaquara: courses of capoeira (folk dance) and theatre for minors at the weekends.
• Fortaleza Local Council: organize in la Barra some courses of Spanish and English;
• FUNCI (Foundation of the Child and Family Citizenship): surfing course for children in Ceara Cove through a games area on the beach;
• PETI (Program for the Eradication of Child Labor): of public title, formative, and artistic activities, with minors in labor exploitation and their families;
• IPREDE (Institute for the Prevention of Exceptional Malnutrition): work with malnourished children, their families and communities;
• Community Center ABC in Ceara Cove: offer social assistance and formation for minors, women and families;
• Guardian Counsellor: municipal organ with the responsibility to send to Saint Monica’s Home the young girls and adolescents in situations of risk of abuse and sexual exploitation;
• In Defense of Life: Project of the Redemption Sisters (Italy) in the district of Pirambú. Act as refuge for the newly-born and adolescent mothers;
• Also, Public Social Services: health centers, schools…

The Saint Monica’s Home participates in joint institutional associations with attention to minors: the Forum for Combating the Abuse and Sexual Exploitation against Children and Adolescents; the Joint Working Group of social street educators; the Minors Pastoral Group for the Archdiocese of Fortaleza; the Center of Defense of Infants and Adolescents in Ceara (CEDECA).

B. Evaluation

Saint Monica’s Home has a system of evaluation which measures the fulfilment of the teaching program, and the objectives that we wish to reach, as well as the quality of its services. The principal indicators could be given in numbers: the number of minors attended to; of them, how many have suffered commercial sexual exploitation; the number of families visited in Ceara Cove; the number of volunteer visitors and street educators.

Also there will be a number of aspects, which whilst not tangible, are still important: the presence of investigators (sociologists, psychologists or teaching specialists) in the Home; the agreements signed with other institutions; the number of medical consultations; the number of residents that find work after passing through the Home; the number of minors in the activities in the Home who reside in the neighboring areas; the number of minors that have participated in network agreements with other institutions…Every one of these numbers will help us to understand which programs function better and which should be improved so that the investment of resources in them would obtain a better return.

This evaluation will also count upon indicators which are not statistical. In this way, the weekly meetings with the street educators, the refuge mothers, the monitors and the dialogue with the residents will serve to know their point of view. The day by day observation will make us understand if there exists in the Home an authentic way of life which is healthy and helps regenerate people. Every resident in the Home will have a file of personal details, conveniently stored according to the current norm, where we register medical, psychological and social proceedings that help us see their growth. It will include information about the family life and the positive or negative influence of the context from which they have come. Also college attendance, professional formation workshops, reports on family visits, and reports from other organizations from where they have come or may be sent…

Once they leave the Home, we will have an annual interview with old residents to know the development of their lives and if they have left aggressive environments. Another of the moments of evaluation will touch on the relevance and effectiveness of the social sensibility campaigns in Ceara Cove. We will also know the exact number of minors that have received a visit, and have been interviewed by the street educators in the district.

C. Planning

The Saint Monica’s Home is a wide-reaching and complex project that has had a large development since the time of its conception. For this reason we have fixed a series of stages, some already completed, others to be fulfilled. The inauguration of the first of the refuge homes in the CEU, which opened on the 27th of August last year, implied a “before” and “after” of the project. Now all the teaching plans are being put to work: the work in the semi-open schemes, the diversified network working, the work in the Home with the young resident girls and the work with the rest of the organizations.

From now on, the next phases will be in practice, of growth in capacity and the improvement of the formative offers in the Center.

1. Semi-open formation and diversified network working

This part of the plan is now very advanced; it was the first which was carried out. The Augustinian Recollect Seminary St. Augustine’s in Ceara Cove and the people associated with it (the Secular Fraternity of St. Rita) have great experience in contact with the minors in la Barra.

There exists a Project against starvation that offers daily food for the families most in need. A group of volunteers make home visits, and there are various cultural programs, including musical formation, reading support and school help.

In terms of the CEU, there is continuous contact with the Minors House of St. Michael the Archangel and with CEARC (Sports, Artistic, Leisure and Cultural Center).

The future prospects will be to increase the number of activities and the links with other organizations.

2. Saint Monica’s Home and the formation of adjusted young people

This was the last task incorporated in Saint Monica’s Home with the opening of the first of the refuge houses on the 27th of August last year. The number of adolescent residents and the work with adjusted young people in the adjoining areas of CEU will go on growing gradually as well as the number of professional formation workshops. All of this has been divided into three phases.

• First Phase

This started with the inauguration of the first refuge house, which permits direct attention to 12 residents between 9 and 11 years old. A “social mother” has been contracted full-time, who will be in charge of their care, education, and the administration of the residence (domestic jobs).

The house counts on all the necessary spaces: television room, dining room, bathrooms, kitchen, bedrooms, and laundry. It was foreseen the construction of another house before passing to the second phase.

• Second Phase

The second phase will start with the construction of the common spaces of the Center. Among them, buildings for the workshops of professional formation, a consulting room, a kiosk a semi-open and multifunctional area for artistic activities, prayer space, therapies, etc.

Conscious of the learning problems of the young girls, a library will be built, a study space and school support. At the same time, it could also be used as a games room. The monitors of the workshops, volunteers and university students on practice or investigative work will help in the library activities.

The first two workshops are yet to be defined, although one will be professional formation and the other artistic formation. Also we count upon the infrastructures of professional formation already completed and in use in the Minors House of St. Michael the Archangel.

We will build an office for social assistance and another for psychology. Work with minors is controlled by public organizations that will have offices at their disposition. The social assistant will go through the official procedures, and together with the psychologist, will form the psycho-social team.

This team will look after the psychological, social and family health of the residents through family visits, individual and group therapy…In individual reports they will register the cognitive, behavioural, and emotional growth of minors. Both members of the team will have full-time contracts.

The administrative area has as its fundamental role in the management of human, technical and economic resources. They will count on their own spaces for accounting, direction and reception.

The philosophy of the CEU promotes freedom and union, forbidding the construction of walls. In order to prevent robberies and other security problems, a full-time security guard will be contracted. In the second phase we hope to have five refuge houses completed and inhabited.

• Third Phase

In the last phase we will increase the population (100 minors), as well as the age gap which will be between 9 and 18 years. We will finish the construction of all the refuge houses up until a total of nine.

A space will be constructed for volunteers and university students on practice, who will support the actions of the contracted personnel. We will construct a residence area for those who need it. The Home itself will be a place of investigation in teaching expertise, psychology sociology …

Furthermore it will help the national and international popularity of Saint Monica’s Home. The spiritual formation will be promoted across all the activities, with prayers beforehand. Nevertheless, the place of reference will be the chapel, a space of prayer and for celebrations of faith. It will have a capacity for 50 people.

The type of workshops will depend on the job market and the resources belonging to the Home. It is hoped to have eight as a minimum, with four for professional formation and four for art and leisure.

The duration will be variable, from six months to two years, at two times: morning and afternoon. We will strengthen the links with financial sources and outside resources, creating new ones. At this stage we will count on specialized services for marketing, communications, and resource management, with their own office.

The formative model, with practice and evaluations, will show its effectiveness and the reduction of risk factors for a high percentage of young girls and adolescents. This, at the same time, will help increase the financial sources and outside resources. In this last stage we will introduce a change in the dynamic of the residences: food will not be prepared by the social mothers of the house, but rather by a general cook.

Meals will be served in a dining room for residents, workers and adjusted young people who participate in the workshops of professional formation and other activities. The full completed Project will have 100 young girls and adolescent residents between 7 and 18 years old in nine houses and up to 300 non-resident minors of both sexes in workshops. In Ceara Cove, at least 100 minors will receive home visits and the support of one of the social street educators.

We will count on the following spaces and resources:

• Twelve social mothers, nine full-time and three for periods of rest and holidays of those contracted.
• Eight professional formation and handcraft workshops with four monitors.
• An area for sports and open air games.
• A library, classroom for school support and table games.
• A medical consulting room for primary attention.
• A chapel.
• An office for the Psychological Area, with a psychologist and social assistant.
• An administrative area with Direction, Accounting, Reception and Communications.
• A residence for volunteers.
• A general dining room with kitchen.
• A security guard, a maintenance worker, and a cook.
• Two street workers from Ceara Cove.

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The CEU feels itself united not only to diverse Catholic institutions. It also celebrates ecumenism with the traditional Christian Churches with whom it shares prayers and the fight for social justice. This was the presentation for the Day of Christian Unity, in which various confessions participated.

The opening of the first house of Saint Monica’s Home, that is the culmination of the first phase of the Project, was broadcast in the local communication mediums. This show was broadcast on the local news channel television TV Cidade, de la Rede Record, on the 27th of August.