Service Volontaire International - Associação Evangélica Luterana de Caridade – AELCA

About the local hosting organization

AELCA - Associação Evangélica Luterana de Caridade - was founded in 1968 with the name “Casa Lares” and worked in a family house attending 15 children. Nowadays, it provides alternative education and social opportunities to more than 150 children aged between 0 and 14 years old who are under social risk and from poor families. AELCA assists and provides alternative education to little children (0-6 years old) with a program called “Educação Infantil” and to older children (7-14 years old) with a program called “Serviço de Apoio Sócio- Educativo”; it also offers meeting point and workshops for youngers aged from 15 years old.
Many different activities and workshops are regularly organised depending on the age group, such as sports, dance, games, computer and language classes, social
assistance and art project activities, with the objective of developing the psychological, affective, cognitive, social and spiritual system of the children.

Presentation of the programme

The volunteer will participate in the daily work of the project like the rest of the staff and he/she will be able to propose his/her own activitiy/es. He/she could prefer work with little children or the oldest ones, that will mean different activities for him/her to do.
Some typical activities developed with the little children will be: assisting and taking care of the children in the basic activities, playing together (simple sports, music, dance…), do pedagogical games (story telling, drawing...) and trips and simple activities. Typical activities developed with the older ones: participate and help in the existing sports workshops, in particular soccer, help in the homework, create recreational activities and workshops (manual works, chess, percussion, games, music…), do English and informatics lessons or special events and trips.

Extra info about the project

Attention : les projets STEPS ICYE ne sont pas des chantiers de groupes. Le placement est individuel (ou à 2 ou 3 volontaires maxi), hébergement en famille. Arrivées les 1er lundi du mois, de mars à novembre.

Observations:
Small and very poor project with few resources; the volunteer will have few materials available to work with, but he/she will have independence and space to
propose some activities.

In social projects in Brazil, most people do not know a second language - such as English - and may not be able to help you so much at your arrival in
the project… For this reason, a basic Portuguese knowledge (or Spanish) is required in order to get an ongoing communication: the more Portuguese you know, the easier work activities get and the more opportunities appear for you.
Long Term Volunteers normally will be working about 35 hours weekly, every day from Monday to Friday, with a free morning or afternoon. The
projects provide the volunteer lunch at midday and snacks during the morning and the afternoon, depending on how long the volunteer will be staying at the
project.
ICYE Brasil is responsible for the costs of volunteer’s transportation from the living placement to the project (buses, local train, or sometimes you can
go walking or by bike). You have to be prepared to catch buses alone, but do not worry because the bus system is a quite efficient means of transport.