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Background
The Santos integrated Children's and Family program consists of a broad result-oriented
program for poor and excluded children in this half a million inhabitant city and major
Latin-American port. The actions are integrated, the solutions are tailored to specific
needs of children, the city actors in general are called to participate. Communications on
the program are controlled by the children. Information flows have been organized between
the concerned instituitions. Private sector and community organizations help coordinating
and funding the activities. The overall results are helping to create a new culture and a
more humane environment.
Narrative
Over the last six years, the municipality of Santos has been developing a number of
projects aimed at children and the family, coordinating initiatives in various areas, like
health, education, culture, sports and advocacy. These integrated and sustained projects
are changing the situation of children in the city.
Taken toghether, the programs organized in Santos are essentially a new way, coordinated,
flexible and result oriented, of executing relatively traditional child and family welfare
programs. A reliable system of information about the situation of children was created,
and this allows action to be focused and, above all, it means that the agencies are forced
to organize around practical results. This involves both the internal efficiency of each
agency and inter-agency cooperation. Community organizations and partnerships with social
players in the city ensure that the pressure of "demand" from the users is felt
by the whole system, forcing it to adopt measures that work. Finally, rapid communication
with city residents allows the gradual creation of a new local culture on children's
problems. And, in a way, as the family environment and the child are valued, basic social
values are reaffirmed. Th practical results are manifest, in the last analysis, in the
substantial reduction in rates of infant mortality, school drop-out and failure, and the
systematic reducion of the number of children at risk.
Santos is a city of half a million inhabitants located 65 km south of Sao Paulo. It is
known for being the largest port in Latin America, and is also an important center for
tourism. The metropolitan area of Santos has 1.2 million inhabitants and a local product
of around 6 billion dollars. The large port area, intensive tourism and the proximity of
the huge urban area of Sao Paulo, with 16 million inhabitants, mean that the problem of
children who are poor or in situations of risk is particulaly important in the region.
In this context, it is particularly important that a municipal government rolled up its
sleeves and plunged into the struggle to defend the family and children, using local
instruments until solutions of national scope are developed. Actually, Santos'experience
shows that local initiative has an enormous potential that is often underestimated.
Beginning in 1989, the municipal government expanded and created programs aimed at
children. A broad and diversified program of services was begun for street children. from
1993 on, with the present administration of Mayor David Capistrano, a doctor specialized
in sanitation, these initiatives were organized into integrated and sustained programs
involving community organizations, business leaders, volunteers and other municipal
governments of the metropolitan area.
CHILDREN'S HEALTH
Program for neonates at risk: following early detection of children at risk in the
maternity wards right after birth, the polyclinic staff is alerted and develops a program
to assist these children and reduce the infant mortality rate. The program includes
pediatrics, immunization, regular visits to the family, encouragemente of breastfeeding,
follow-up when children are hospitalized. Specialized care for pregnant women at risk,
especially adolescents, is provided at the woman's home at any hour of the day. This has
contributed to reducing the infant mortalizty rate from 34 per thousand live births in
1990 to 22 in 1994.
Home Care Program: Medical care at home for cases that would normally require
hospitalization makes it possible for the child to remain with the family.
Care for HIV-positive children: The municipal program for prevention and treatment of AIDS
does early diagnose and provides integrated care. It also carries out a permanent
prevention program, together with the Secretariat of Education.
Mental Health: The municipal government currently has two centers for children's
self-esteem that provide multidisciplinary services to children with problems at school
and who have been ill-treated.
Dental Health: This includes controls over the concentration of fluoride in drinking water
and supervised brushing and fluoride mouthwashes in the municipal and state school
systems, reaching about 50,000 children. The index of decayed teeth lost or filled in
children up to 12 years old, went down from 5.1 in 1989 to 3.5 in 1993 and 1.7 in 1995.
This rate is better than the WHO goal of 3 by the year 2000. The average in Brazil is 6.7
and in the State of Sao Paulo 6.4.
EVERY CHILD IN SCHOOL
Since 1989 the Municipal Secretariat of Education has been trying to reduce the drop-out
and failure rates and intensify participation in school administration. Special classes
considered to be discriminatory were replaced with "support classrooms".
Starting in 1993, the number of schools was reduced to increase the number of hours the
students stayed at school and improve the quality of teaching. Two thousand new places
were created at the same time. Municipal school teachers participate in ongoing training
schemes.
The Happy Holiday Program, involving about 4000 children, is organized during vacations,
with sports and cultural activities and ecological tours. Most students'parents work and
do not have time off during this period of the year. All the municipal secretariats
related to social welfare are involved in the activities, together with community
organizations.
Action taken at municipal level created a differential from the state school system.
Municipal primary schools have 19,000 students, while state schools have 32,000. In the
state schools, the drop-out rate was 11.91% in 1994. In the municipal system, only 0.68%.
For this reason, a joint program was created, involving both the Municipal and the State
Secretariats of Education, as well as community organizations.
In June 1995 the city launched the "Every Child In School" program to ensure
that Santos residents have access to, stay in and are sucessful in school at least through
the first 8 years; the program combats both the tendency to drop out and child labor.
The program is made up of activities within and outside schools. In the first phase, of
active search, all children and adolescents who had left school in 1994 were visited.
Trained by the Program coordinators, 150 volunteers visited the families of 1,750 children
and youth who had left school or ran the risk of dropping out.
The program has also advanced with a series of awareness-building activities with
teachers, stimulating them to provide remedial classes and mobilizing individual and
institutional volunteers, like unions, churches and others. Thses support centers provide
services to 490 children.
SPORTS AND CULTURE
Among other activities, the Sports Schools are important, involving 4,000 children and
using city facilities or hiring them from other organizations. The Scretariat of Sports
periodically organizes "play streets" that attract children to different
recreational activities. Priority has been given to areas with few options for leisure
activities and children with weak links to the formal life of the city.
The work in this area is oriented by the creation of an environment "rich" in
culture and accessible to children. The Municipal Secretariat of Culture provides these
activities to about 5,000 children a month. Besides this, it works in partnership with
other municipal secretariats and somo projects have gained prominence, such as the Street
Dance Group, which won two national festivals.
PROJECT FOR BOYS AND GIRLS IN SITUATIONS OF RISK
This project for children and adolescents in especially dificult situations is a
pedagogical complex aimed at changing the lives of street children and of girls who are
victims of prostitution and at combating child labor.
All of the activities begin in the children's current environment, to create bonds of
trust, begin a pedagogical process and encourage the emergence of life plans.
The service system has the following mechanisms:
Child Hot Line: A staff of educators provides round-the-clock support and responses to the
community's initiatives of solidarity, providing information about children that need
support. There is a shelter for these children, if they wan to use it.
Shelter: short-term shelter where children can be fed and receive first aid. The first
step taken, whenever possible, is to return them to their families. Of the 1,530 children
who have stayed at the shelter, 198 went back to their families.
Street Educators: A group of educators circulates throughout the city. It creates bonds
with the children, runs sports activities and takes children into the shelter.
Generation 2001 Experimental School: There are "capoeira" lessons, silkscreen,
painting, sculpture, ballet and sports workshops. The students publish a newspaper.
Joao Caetano and Vila Mathias Houses: Two houses for children who, because they have
broken their relations to their families, need complete care. The children receive medical
and dental care and are educated to change their habits. Currently, these children attend
school 80% of the time. This complete basic care is provided to 55 children and
adolescents. Of these, 84% completed their school year with success in 1995.
Beginning to Work: this program is dedicated to job training for adolescents, with
computer and other courses. With the support of local business, 23 adolescents have jobs
and their progress and rights as workers are respected. One example of this project is at
the open-air markets, with 152 adolescents who carry bags. They were organized, and given
uniforms and carts. The link to the informal labor market is not broken, it is organized,
and this organization gradually leads to school, to job training, and eventually to jobs
in the formal sector.
Girls of Santos Project: Aimed at girls who are sexually exploited or risk becoming
prostitutes, this project contacts the girls and children and directs them to the Casa do
Trem Social Center, which has a beauty parlor, holds workshops on sexuality, provides help
with school homework and training for other suitable jobs. Of the 170 girls on the rolls,
80 regularly go the Casa do Trem and have 85% of school attendance. Eight already have
jobs.
Radio Muleke (Radio Kd): A one-hour, weekly AM radio program with a large audience. The
themes of programs, reporting and voices all belong to children. The idea of a radio
program is to give them a vioce and improve the educational process. As in football games,
those who miss school receive a "yellow card" and are suspended from the
program. The program has had national repercussion as it shows to what extent the media
are important to develop a feeling of existing, of "belonging" to society in
these young people.
Social Centers: A network of six cultural and sports centers and a toy library located in
the poorest neighborhoods of the city serve 3,000 children who are somewhat at risk,
providing tutoring and other preventive actions.
Be a Guardian Angel Campaign: On 12 October 1994 this campaign was begun in partnership
with the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Municipal Council of the rights of Children and
adolescents and the ABRINQ foundation (a business non-profit organization) and with radio
stations and TV-Tribuna. More than 600 people called in, were invited to participate as
volunteers, to contribute to the apprenticeship and Job Exchange Program, contribute
financially or, after a strict evaluation, adopt children.
The main idea of this project is to promote children's development, a journey that goes
from the street, prostitution or work to the school and the family. The project has
cooperation agreements with UNICEF, Norway's Emmanuel House, Poiesis Association and the
business community.
METROPOLITAN COVENANT FOR CHILDREN
Santos has two Guardian Councils (legal guardians and caretakers of the rights of
children) elected by the citizenry and has instituted practically all of the mechanisms
provided for by the Children's and Adolescents'Act. It therefore responds to demands from
surrounding areas and activities have had to be expanded. In June 1995 the first
Metropolitan Covenant for Children was signed. Through this agreement, the 9 mayors of the
Santos metropolitan region commit themselves to inaugrating their Guardian Councils,
drafting their goals in the areas related to children and reaching them.
CONCLUSION
Santos has now taken one more step forward with the creation of the Program for Family
Support aimed at preventing child labor. On a temporary basis, it provides families with
resources to keep children in school, intensifies communication and popular participation
to reinforce social values and forms a genuine culture of respect for children in the
city.
Impact
Infant mortality rate reduced from 34 per thousand live births in 1990 to 22 per
thousand in 1994.
Index of decayed teeth lost or filled in children up to 12 years old reduced from 5.1 in
1989 to 3.5 in 1993 and 1.7 in 1995.
School capacity for basic education (eight years) raised by 7,000 between 1993 and 1996.
Drop-out rate; 0.68% in Santos municipal schools, as compared to 4.8% in Sao Paulo
municipal schools, and 11.91% in State of Sao Paulo schools.
Sustainability
The Santos program for children has adopted the guidelines of the Children's And
Adolescents' Act, which provides a clear legal and institutional framework for the
activities.
On the other hand, the sustainability of the Santos experience results from a very
realistic set of principles that have guided practically every action:
1 - Children's problems are being faced holistically: for children, health, education,
income, safety are not separate domains. As a result, the environment created for children
is being developed in an integrated way.
2 - Each child is regarded as an individual: excessively overarching policies to reach
"categories", that do not pay attention to individual problems, do not have good
results. In the last instance, a child captured by the machinery of prostitution or drugs,
who is a victim of labor exploitation or has been abandoned by his or her parents,
generates a set of problems and values that require specific solutions. As a result,
policies are being organized according to types of problems, but action is going through
the capillaries of the body politic, reaching individuals, groups and the community.
3 - Children are taking an active part in the process: they are not being
"assisted" in the traditional sense. The process of rebuilding self-esteem and
reconstructing forms of relating to life require that they take conscious attitudes.
Children have had a chance to evaluate and to criticise the programs, incorporating them
into their culture and making them more permanent.
4 - All the range of activities is centered not on quick or miraculous solutions, but on
diversified and long-reaching policies that reach the capillary level and are sustained
over enough time to become permanent. They actually can be considered as changes in
culture, not just improvements in material conditions.
5 - More than creating a large bureaucracy, the Santos program for children is based on
the effective participation of many "social actors": municipal government, the
courts, business leaders, volunteers, community organizations, the media, the children
themselves. Hence, the traditional administrative system based on laws, budgets and
controls has been broadly supplemented by a permanent process of coordination with other
social players in the city, rooting the activities in local institutional traditions.
6 - The result-oriented policy has gradually led to the coordination of different
government structures, including national and regional welfare agencies, generating a
strong effort of inter-government management. Since the good results are benefitng all
agencies, the tendency is to sustain the effort.
7 - Information has been considered a key issue, a fundamental dimension of children's
advocacy. This has required both "fine" organization of information that is only
possible to produce if educators work in the risk environments where the children live,
and a broader statistical view that makes it possible to scale the programs correctly. It
has also been necessary to interact with the social actors, identify job opportunities and
other real alternatives for the children, as well as communicate with society as a whole
about the world of its children and help it overcome fears and prejudice.
The general feeling is that the sustainablility is guaranteed, in so far as these things
can be guaranteed, both by the institutional framework, and the culture of basic social
values that is being reaffirmed in the city.
Indicators
1. the indicators used to measure impact are classical, such as infant mortality, but
the city is presently generating a set of "quality of urban life indicators", in
the line of the Human Development Reports from the U.N.
2. Sustainability of the program, since it is basically linked to institutional
development, is based on involving all city actors with the needs of children: as such,
the indicators are basically qualitative.
3. The success of the project is being measured both by quantitative and qualitative
indicators.
Contact
Sponsor
Santos Municipal Government
Ladislau Dowbor
R. Hawa’ 533 apt. 7A
Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo
Brazil
01259-000
55-11-872.9877 fax:55-11-871.2911
LDOWBOR@exatas.pucsp.br
Partners
Santos Municipal Government
Antonio Lancetti - Secretario SEAC
R. Augusto Severo 7, 14¼ andar
Santos
S.P.
Brazil
11010-050
55-13-232.5380
Secretaria de Aao Comunitaria
Carlos Lamberti - Vice Prefeito
Prada Maua s/n
Santos
S.P.
Brazil
11010-900
55-11-219.2924
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