These fourteen years have meant specialized care that includes all aspects of the person, in comprehensive education; Thus, there were up to 1,485 important medical attentions, 176 beneficiaries with completed professional courses and up to 62 who returned to society with a job.
On August 27, the Saint Monica Home, a socio-educational project of the Augustinian Recollects in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza whose objective is recovery, rehabilitation and social reintegration of girls and adolescents who have suffered abandonment, abuse or exploitation, celebrated fourteen years of existence.
The Augustinian festivities of Saint Monica (August 27), patron saint of the Home, and Saint Augustine (August 28), the holy son of Monica and whose teachings and proposals are the basis of life of the Augustinian-Recollect Family, serve each year for a joyful celebration, which commemorates the institution’s birthday.
It always has a double aspect: the happy one, due to the obvious improvement in life and expectations of the future of its current and past beneficiaries; and the committed one, because it continues there is a lot of work to do and the main rights of many girls are still violated and adolescents in society who are left unattended by anyone.
Figures that are people
Fourteen years of work at the Saint Monica Home are reflected in numbers. However, not these are mere statistics and figures, because behind them there are vulnerable people who have gone through a painful process that they must overcome and, above all, eliminate any possibility of recurrence:
- Girls and adolescents served directly: 212 beneficiaries
- Parents, relatives and guardians indirectly benefited: 17,040 people
- Managed medium or high intensity healthcare: 1,485 procedures
- Vocational training managed and completed: 176 beneficiaries
- Jobs obtained for beneficiaries: 62
- Number of psychological care sessions: 16,226
- Number of social assistance procedures: 14,982
- Visits to beneficiaries’ homes: 2,215
- School reinforcement and guided study sessions: 10,148
- Sessions dedicated to healthy leisure, sports and culture: 3,780
The Saint Monica Home serves as a place of residence 24 hours a day/7 days a week of the girls and adolescents who have been sent by the competent authorities (courts, councils guardianships, City Councils) to remove them from aggressive contexts and situations of abandonment, commercial sexual exploitation, abuse, unschooling and others.
A team of professionals from Psychology, Social Assistance and Pedagogy, together with a team management and direction is dedicated to these beneficiaries exclusively, in situations frequent periods of great tension, especially at the time of first admission.
The reality that these beneficiaries have gone through requires special knowledge that give experience, along with the professional training acquired. They are situations complex, hard and with the beneficiaries starting from a situation of great pain, destabilization and lack of basic tools for coexistence, regulated education or interpersonal relationships based on love, empathy, collaboration or gratuitousness.
They try to recover all of this during their stay at the Saint Monica Home, so that their social reintegration has success and future expectations.
The “birthday” party
The celebration began on August 27 at nine in the morning with a Eucharist presided over by a priest from the Oasis de la Paz Community, which also has a own attention space in the Uirapuru Spiritual Condominium, where the Home is established Saint Monica. It was held outdoors at the Saint Augustine Cultural Center with the presence of the entire Home team, its beneficiaries, representatives of the CEU entities and friends of the project.
On the 28th, Saint Augustine, there was also a Eucharist presided over by a priest of the Canção Nova Community. Below, all the members of the Saint Monica Home.
They enjoyed a very fun day at the Gran Royal Beach Club, thanks to the generosity of the singer Guto Ribeiro and the presenter Lorrane Cabral, a very known for his professional tasks and his profuse presence on social networks.
The day was full of fun in the pool and games, with plenty of food and joy shared by all. A way to get out of the ordinary routine but in an educational way, playful and that promotes coexistence.
