We all know that the children of today are the future of tomorrow. How we educate them, how we see and treat them and how we act around them, is going to shape the world of tomorrow. But not every child has the privilege to grow up in a healthy environment. In Southern Brazil alcohol abuse is a significant issue for a lot of parents. Children of alcoholics suffer from the consequences of being brought up upon alcohol. Facing social exclusion, developing mental illness or even becoming alcoholics themselves is a real threat to their future. The KIDS Support Groups in Brazil committed themselves to tackle this problem. KIDS Support Groups are a place where children, affected by their parents’ substance abuse are welcomed and get orientation as a strategy of prevention and assistance to people in circumstances of social vulnerability and hazard.
The pandemic has challenged the work of the KIDS Support Groups a lot, since it wasn’t possible anymore to regularly meet each other and organise events. Nevertheless the facilitators of the KIDS Support Groups came up with new and creative ways to still support the kids in the communities of Brazil. All 36 KIDS Support Groups found different ways to individually support children during this difficult time. Some groups managed to organise online meetings, others even had some face-to-face activities.
Besides connecting with the kids, it is really important to educate new facilitators and build new partnerships in order to start more KIDS Support Groups all over Brazil. We are really excited to announce new partnerships in the north east of Brazil, where now a new group has been started!
Another achievement of the last couple of months was the finalization of the first story of the comic, “the Azulinho series”. In 2020 they started the elaboration of comics for prevention. These comics are used during activities and get distributed to kids. Working with comics is a way to prevent kids from drug and alcohol use in a child-friendly way.
If you want to know more about the KIDS Support Groups, you can read our reports on GlobalGiving: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/kids-support-groups-in-brazil/
