This update was translated by staff and volunteers of Dreams Can Be Foundation August, 2008

1129 Lunch for Children in Free NGO Day-Care Center. Dear donor friends, the NGO “Voluntarios Fazendo Criança Sorrir” {Volunteers Making Children Smile} is thankful for all your support that was destined in them to our project with children, adolescent, carriers of physical deficiency and chronic illnesses. Our project works with children of 6 months through 16 years at our round the clock day-care center, providing the children with early childhood development in alphabetization, recreation and providing all the meals that they need during the period that they are with us. With the aid of food donations for the children, a real priority, it was possible to save some money and to remodel a space that was donated and that we transformed into a community library, with room for educational games, space for children to play, pertaining to school reinforcement and every Saturday we have the project “video in the community” in which the children watch a film and later they have a snack, today we take care of more than 120 children, we offer to 49 families basic food baskets (food staples) and we distribute soup for 200 people. With this new space of recreation it was easier to attract the children and the adolescents, we help the children with school difficulties, we help them with their homework and we can show them that only through their studies they will have a better condition of life. We have a big number of adolescents wanting to participate, but beyond the small space we need more people to help teach. We are needing computers for the children, we currently have only 1 for all the children to use, we need also a printer in order to print the materials pertaining to school reinforcement, bookshelves for more books, desks, today we are using the tables of the bar in front of the project they lend to us, but its not enough and some children have to do activities on the floor, we could also use 1 television and 1 DVD player as what we are using is loaned by a member from the community, educational games and 1 refrigerator to be able to supply water and to keep the snacks. Marcos, 14 years old, who is part of the project, was having much difficulty learning, he was missing classes from regular school due to shame in front of his classmates due to an inability to learn the subjects. With school reinforcement through the project and the method of learning that we adopt with him, he has begun improving and he is no longer missing classes. This was possible also because of the new space.

Carina, 10 years old, child with disturbance, through the affection, attention patience and the method adopted by our volunteers, already is recognizing colors, vowels and putting together some syllables. With this project we arouse in the children the interest of reading and the importance of study. Our intention is to form adults, who although living in a poor community and with little access to education, acquire knowledge of their rights and duties as citizens. The main objective of this project is, beyond being a space where the parents can leave their children to go to work and to gain sustenance for their families, is to help children in the difficulties with school, to improve their school attendance, to stimulate their interest in reading and to keep them busy with good things.

Our sincere thanks for the donations that we receive, without the aid in feeding of the children, we would not have been able to remodel this space. We would like to continue counting on the contribution of our donors to improve and to be able to take care of more children and adolescents. Thank you for all the people who believe on our work of solidarity. We continue needing the aid of all.

produce for project and families of children

Children with the projects one computer