A network of child-focused soup kitchens and feeding centers has formed in the San Jose Valley, Brazil, feeding 1,500 children a daily nutritious breakfast. This project aimed to support the large numbers of children under the age of 12 who are often forced to leave school several days of the week in order to find employment in order that their family will be able to eat.
The program covered the primary needs of children, including healthy eating, encouraging the direct participation of families in the community. This served both to transform the nutritional well being of the children and also raises awareness among families and communities as to the basic causes of malnutrition.
The centers also worked to run programs addressing the needs of the communities, for example educational opportunities, family activities, counseling, health issues and child prostitution development.
Through the initial commitment of Global Angels funding, the network was able to commit to helping 250 school aged children. With some creative networking and careful planning, they increased the number of children they were able to commit to ensuring that on each day of classes, 300 children received a healthy meal.
The food distributor was so moved and impressed with the activities of the feeding program, that they have agreed to not only deliver the food for free but gave the entire network in San Jose opportunity to purchase food from them at a discounted cost. This means that ALL the projects will receive the long term benefits of being able to access high quality food at a fraction of the price. Imagine the difference this will make to the projects as they are now able to do more with what little money they have.
