wfn.org | Brazilian Presbyterians Seek to Help Children With AIDS

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

Reply-To: wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>
28-October-1998 
98352 
 
    Brazilian Presbyterians Seek to Help Children With AIDS 
 
    by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -When Paolo Sergio Carvalhaes flips through the pages of 
his photo album, he points out children and names each one - "Jessica ... 
Pamela ... Rafaela" - most already diagnosed as HIV-positive, some with 
infected sisters and brothers. 
 
    There are other pictures too. 
 
    A young HIV-positive prostitute stands in front of her tiny wooden 
house. She consented to the photo only when Carvalhaes promised it would 
not be shown in Brazil, where it might scare off her clients.  Another 
picture shows a 26-year-old widow whose husband left behind the virus that 
killed him and infected two of their five children. He did not leave money 
to pay for gas to cook meals or for electricity to light the shack where 
she lives on the city's edge. 
 
    The photos were shot in Sorocaba, a city of more than 400,000, not far 
from Brazil's capital, Sao Paolo. There Carvalhaes works as a volunteer 
director of a church-run day-care center for HIV-positive children.  It is 
called Children of Bethlehem, Carvalhaes says, as a reminder of another 
slaughter of innocents that people were too frightened to stop centuries 
ago. The killing of Bethlehem's children forced a man named Joseph to flee 
during the night with the infant Jesus to the safety of Egypt. 
 
    The problem with today's killer - AIDS -  is that there is nowhere to 
flee.  So the Sao Paulo Presbyterian Church  - a medium-sized congregation 
of the one million-member Presbyterian Church of Brazil (IPB) - opted to 
create a place where HIV-infected children may safely stay. 
 
      At Children of Bethlehem, the $1,000-per-child monthly cost for 
medicine is covered for the first three months, (then the city underwrites 
those costs). Dentists work on the childrens' teeth, and psychologists help 
them talk about their feelings.  They have plenty of food -  five meals a 
day to be exact - something that is not guaranteed at home.  Social workers 
pay regular visits. Volunteer gardeners grow the vegetables used to fill 
baskets that are delivered monthly to families with children in the 
program. 
 
    The day-care's van picks up the children each morning just after dawn, 
when their mothers, who are most often domestic workers, leave for work. 
The van takes them home at dusk, when their mothers return from work. Each 
day there is time for stories and learning the alphabet and, perhaps most 
poignantly, there are other children who will play with them. 
 
    "These children are craving affection," said Carvalhaes.  "They suffer 
discrimination - for instance, their neighbors won't play with them. 
Mothers - often right in front of the children - will say, `Don't play with 
her, you may get sick.' 
 
    "One family [in the program] is completely cut off  from a grandmother. 
She just doesn't want them to visit," he said. Community pressure has 
persuaded some local authorities to bar HIV-infected youngsters from 
attending public school. 
 
    Such is life in the families of Brazil's poor, where statistics show 
that seven of every 100 babies is born HIV-positive - one of the highest 
continuing rates of infection of children in the world.  Though public 
clinics try to document HIV-infection, the virus often spreads unnoticed 
among the poverty-stricken in Brazil, who have a harder time getting 
adequate medical treatment and maintaining hygienic living standards.  Many 
pregnant women avoid treatment in hopes of keeping their diagnosis secret 
and avoiding the predictable social stigma.  Others simply lack the 
necessary bus fare to go to the public clinic. 
 
     In Sorocaba alone, authorities estimate that 60 children are born each 
year with the virus, which is transmitted either during pregnancy or birth. 
 
    Twenty-eight children - from babies to age seven - are currently being 
served by Children of Bethlehem.   Six of these children - who are orphans 
or whose parental custody has been revoked by the courts -  live there. 
Twenty-six volunteer laypeople and eight full-time staff run the center's 
ministries, from driving the van that transports the children to weeding 
the vegetable garden that is used to provide the monthly food baskets. 
 
    The disease is now in remission for six of the children who have been 
in the day-care program, according to Carvalhaes. He has been with Children 
of Bethlehem since it opened its doors in 1995, when church members became 
sensitized to the problems within HIV-infected families. 
 
    The church's program began with a chaplaincy service to HIV-positive 
pregnant women.  "We helped them cope spiritually," said Carvalhaes.  "But 
the greatest anguish of the mothers ... was the future of their children 
once they were born.  That was the worst part.  They were so poor, and no 
one would receive them in their homes." 
 
    As the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s liaison to Brazil, the Rev. Eddie 
Soto says,  "There is complete social stigma involved." 
 
    That stigma has affected the center itself, where the rent for Children 
of Bethlehem runs more than it would be for ordinary tenants. And it keeps 
going up.  As a result, Carvalhaes and the church's volunteers are building 
another facility on land donated to them by the city on the outskirts of 
Sorocaba.  The objective is to accommodate immediately at least 50 
children. A longer term project is to build a school for children blocked 
from attending public school. 
 
    The school would also give the center's medical and chaplaincy staffs 
access to older children. Now seven is the age limit for treatment, because 
of the center's financial and staff limitations, Carvalhaes said. 
 
    Ground is to be broken on the new $125,000 day-care center soon after 
the first of the year.  Fund-raisers and education programs are under way 
now. Recently, a group of  local lawyers ran a marathon to call attention 
to AIDS education.  The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has pledged $50,000 to 
the project and established an Extra Commitment Opportunity (ECO) account(# 
047981) to receive donations specifically for Children of Bethlehem. 
 
    Funds to support the original facility came through a grant from 
Presbyterian Women of the PC(USA).  According to Soto, the PC(USA) is 
considering supporting a mission service position at the day-care for a 
full-time U.S. nurse. 
 
 
 
    "These people have their own lives to live," said Soto of the 
volunteers who staff the day-care center and run its multiple programs. 
"They have their own families to support, their own kids to care for.  Yet 
they sacrifice their time and resources to help these kids who wouldn't get 
help any other way. They see this not as a job but as a ministry." 
 
    Gaining the trust of family members of the children takes time, 
Carvalhaes told the Presbyterian News Service. Since HIV-positive adults 
usually are wrestling with anger and depression and denial, on top of 
Sorocaba's grinding poverty.  "One of the things that happens with AIDS - 
and the possibility of death - is that a lot of people close themselves up 
and don't really talk about it. Right now, the kids prefer not to think or 
talk about it," he said. 
 
    "They just keep clinging to life." 
 
    E-mail for Children of Bethlehem may be sent to: 
cribelem@splicenet.com.br 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by PCUSA NEWS
  to the wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>.
  Send unsubscribe requests to wfn-news-request@wfn.org