Regions: Africa   Asia   Latin America


Name of Organization: Casa Renascer

Country: Brazil

Project Title: "Strengthening Strategies to Fight Against the Commerical Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents in the City of Natal"

Project Timeframe: 10 months

Location of Project: Natal City

Budget Amount: $30,000

NGO contact and website:
Késia Araújo
Executive Director
Rua Ana Néri, 345 – Petrópolis -Natal –
Rio Grande do Norte/Brasil 59020-040
www.casarenascer.org.br

Project's Primary Objective: Increase the consciousness of working children about the importance of education for all and mobilize community actors to improve education infrastructure

Description of Organization: Casa Renascer, founded in the city of Natal/RN in 1991 to act in defence of the rights of children and adolescents, consists of an NGO involved in the fight against the sexual exploitation of children and has become an institution of reference in assisting the victims of sexual violence, a fact that generates demands for presentation of lectures in schools and other places and institutions and which, in turn, has become an important indicator of the necessity of a serious work on the perspective of the strengthening of the bonds and values of the families living along the coastline of the city of Natal.

Description of Project funded by CIRCLE: The project entitled Fortalecimento das Estratégias de Enfrentamento a Exploração Sexual Comercial de Crianças e Adolescentes na Cidade do Natal consists of a proposition which aims at making people aware of all the damages caused by child labour and of the importance of education for all children; with the perspective of the creation of a social methodology which builds an institutional bond between Casa Renascer, the families, the schools and the communities; thus being a pilot experiment in one school of each of the communities located along the coastline of the city of Natal/RN. The work to be carried out within the schools focuses on the families, strengthening moral values, tackling the issue and trying to prevent child labour, especially when it concerns sexual exploitation. Moreover, it is attempted to involve the Community Centres for an effective promotion and mobilization for the project.

The city of Natal/RN has been consolidating its potential as a tourist destination in the Brazilian northeast, with regular flights arriving from several countries of Europe; a condition which has not only brought a source of income to the city, but also social problems such as the commercial sexual exploitation of children and adolescents, especially in the communities of Mãe Luiza, Praia do Meio and Ponta Negra located around the city’s main beaches where foreign tourists will go in search of sex tourism.

The conception developed by Casa Renascer about the school is that it consists of a legitimate space for an intervention on facing the issue of child labour, in a prevention perspective, for what occurs within the school environment aggregates value to the community in question. The dismantling of such violence and the construction of a culture that respects the rights of children implies the establishment of a process of deconstruction of the social and sexual relations based on domination and exploitation. In this process, the school stands out as the promoter of citizenship, constituting a privileged environment for the orientation and strengthening of the autonomy of the victims of such violence; and of prevention, as a systematic program is developed to assist the several constituents of the school community.

Casa Renascer feels the necessity to carry out work that contemplates the families through starting a discussion on family values, education and exploitation, for it considers the family institution an indispensable agent in the process of socialization and development of the children. It proposes the creation of a program of meetings, lectures and constant monitoring of the records of school attendance in the coastline communities of the city of Natal – namely Mãe Luiza, Praia do Meio and Ponta Negra – characterized by their high degree of social vulnerability, in the perspective of a social methodology, bearing in mind that the work developed by the institution ensures that the prevention of sexual exploitation must first take place from the awareness of the society, having the family as a starting point.

The sustaining of the proposition presented is configured as an elaboration of a social methodology of intervention capable of being applied in other contexts, provided that the local particularities are taken into consideration. The project is organized in a way that its actions can have continuity, with the perspective of being carried out in other geographical areas of the city of Natal.

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