Nilce
Belo Horizonte (Nilce)
We continue to support Nilce who is the head teacher of a state secondary school in Belo Horizonte.
Nilce is a head teacher of a state secondary school in Belo Horizonte. Our support enables her to offer extra curricular activities for children who come mainly from the notorious (shanty town) favela, called Pedreira, and others like it in the area. Nilce is planning to retire later this year to work full time with the abused and disadvantaged children from Bello Horizonte’s many favelas. Pedraviva gives £200 monthly towards the expenses of this work. Nilce writes two of the children that they have been able to help:
Derik De Jesus – a difficult child, who doesn’t know who his father is. He lives in the favela with his mother, who is a domestic servant, and his brother who is involved with a local gang dealing in drugs. Derik came to the project, where he did various courses in IT, maintenance and the repairing of computers. He realised he didn’t want to go down the same road as his brother. Even though his “friends” criticised him for not being in the drug gang, he was determined to stay away from this drug culture. His brother died in 2007 in a shooting! Thanks to your help today, Derik is studying the final year of school and works in the IT department at Belo Horizonte city council.
Prinscila Patricia – her whole family was involved in drugs. She was a shy, overweight child who felt she was ugly and hardly spoke. We managed to persuade her to take part in the street dance group. She became one of our best school students, volunteered in another dance group, and finished her studies and today is working in a Call Centre, and is now planning to go to university to study Law. She wants to be a lawyer and be able to defend the poor.
As Nilce retires from being headteacher of the school she runs, she wants to rent out a place to develop more projects. She still does not the funds for this, but is trusting in the Lord to provide.
We would love to help Nilce so she can help more children from the shanty towns and prevent them from being involved in drugs and living on the streets of Brazil’s cities.
Nilce writes: "Since the project began, many children who had behaviour problems in school have been changed. As they learn percussion, they are taughtgood manners, moral values, personal hygiene and how to be good citizens. he idea is that through music the children won't get involved in drugs, which iscommonplace in the locality. They are now happier, enjoy doing their homework and are excited when they have the opportunity to perform outside the school they have taken part in shows, conventions, conferences, inaugration ceremonies and cultural events."
