Missionaries provide education and relaxation in activities adapted for special needs refugee children and youths.
“Aunty, don’t you speak any Spanish?”, a Venezuelan child asked the missionary of the Fraternidade – International Humanitarian Federation (FIHF), Rosi Freitas, who responded that she only knew well a few prayers in that language.
“At that point, all the children wanted to know what the prayer was and said that their grandparents and parents cried and prayed every day,” says the missionary.
While fathers and mothers leave Venezuela in crisis for uncertain destinations and dreams, the children interrupt what they do best – learn and play – to follow them in search of a fairer and dignified life that guarantees a future.
Estimates from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) show that among the refugees who arrived in Brazil, in the period between 2015 and 2019, there are around 10,000 children and young people in a vulnerable situation.
Just between May and November of 2019, according to data of the Public Defenders of the Union (Federal Government), more than 500 children and adolescents aged between 13 and 17, entered Roraima unaccompanied from Venezuela.
In all the world, children and adolescents younger than 18 represent 52% of the refugee population, according to UN data.
In exile, they are susceptible to suffering, traumas as a result of abuse, negligence, violence, exploitation, trafficking, or even military recruiting.
In refugee shelters in Brazil, they may not understand all the words in Portuguese, but they prove that playing is a universal language. It is healing.
Project for The Common Good
Born of a partnership with UNICEF in 2017, the first phase of the project ‘The Common Good’ brought together Brazilian and Venezuelan teachers who are responsible for the cultural mediation, hired to offer educational activities to children and adolescents in 10 shelters maintained by the Humanitarian Fraternidade (FIHF), supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the State of Roraima.
On average, around 150 young people per shelter were cared for, while in the two indigenous shelters (Pintolândia, in Boa Vista, and Janakoida, in Pacaraima), a different method was used, adapted to the environment and culture of the ethnic groups, respecting the protocols established by international bodies.
The second phase of the project, begun in 2019, and still supported by the UNHCR, serves five shelters. The services began to be provided by missionaries of the Humanitarian Fraternidade (FIHF) with a slant toward art education.
Emergency Education
The Humanitarian Fraternidade (FIHF) promotes training in techniques of Emergency Education for missionaries. The training is done by the team that, in Brazil, coordinates the method created within the Anthroposophy movement, which has representatives worldwide.
The psycho-educational method is focused on children and young people at risk, victims of conflicts in war, natural catastrophes, and abuse.
“The path that Emergency Education proposes, with the potential of immediate results, is that of joy,” defines the administrator of the Humanitarian Fraternidade (FIHF), Friar Luciano.
The relief brought about by playful activities alleviates some of the common consequences in children in vulnerable situations, such as fear, panic, sleep and eating disorders.
“All the players in an episode of violence need support, but the children need the healing of the soul the most. In the end, trauma is a wounding of the soul, and for that there are no ointments, bandages, or medications. The path to achieve the healing of the soul lies in the recovery of joy, in actions that requalify the memory of the trauma, such as music, drawing, playing in groups and at home,” emphasizes Friar Luciano.
“The education offered by the project is not aimed at literacy, or numbering. It is not done to replace formal education, but rather to provide support for that moment of possible trauma”, explains Sister Maria, monk of the Grace Mercy Order, missionary of the Humanitarian Fraternidade (FIHF) and coordinator of the project ‘The Common Good,’ which also seeks to assist the insertion of those being considered for the formal education system.
In the emergency model, refugee children are included in the education process as active agents, as protagonists of the process. It is an education done with the children, not ‘for’ them.
Children and youths with degrees of blindness, mutilations, paralysis, or with any kind of special need has the activities adapted. The missionary also says that given the situation of vulnerability of everyone in the shelter, group union is provided more easily among the young people.
Between Crying and Prayer, Laughter and Hope
Also a member of the Acolhida (Welcome) Operation, the Manaus Transit Shelter (MTS) receives families that stay there for up to five days, after which they are sent by the international agency to other locations in Brazil. The shelter has the capacity to receive around 400 refugees.
It was there that Rosi Freitas spent a month. She coordinated multiple presentations, singing and play activities. Miming, statue, painting, drawing, and even working with clay were part of the programming modeled according to the wishes and needs of the children who asked for classic games such as hot potatoes, hopscotch, three Marys, and volleyball and basketball games.
“These children come from days of walking. They spend a lot of time on the road, without knowing if they are going to eat or where they will sleep. They need to let go of this energy of anguish,” says the missionary.
Even the difference between the languages of Rosi, Brazilian, and that of the children became a game. “They would laugh a lot about how we pronounced some words like ‘chinelo’ (flip-flop), that for them is ‘chola’. They also laughed when trying to pronounce some things in Portuguese, like the ‘ão’, that Spanish doesn’t have. It shows us that what is simple is also fun,” she says.
During that period, two children with special needs passed through the place that, according to Rosi, were included in all the games and were accepted, had attention and care from the rest of the participants.
In games of mimicking animals, the missionary proposed to the group that there be a representation of a tortoise so as to include a little girl who had difficulty moving and used a walker.
“The little girl was very happy because the other children could wait for her to settle on the ground. The proposal to imitate the tortoise was made so that everyone could follow her rhythm. In this way, a ‘turtle family’ was formed, which overcame all the difficulties,” she says.
Through joy, the trauma is addressed with love daily and every day, responsible for a more inclusive and fraternal world.
