Vera Cordeiro « Skoll Foundation

Associação Saúde Criança

Skoll Entrepreneur(s): Vera Cordeiro
Focus Area(s) Addressed: Healthcare Access and Treatment
Award Year: 2006

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DESCRIPTION:

In her work as a physician in a public hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Vera Cordeiro felt helpless when children who were successfully treated for an infectious disease returned to the hospital and died from the same disease after being reinfected at home. Vera realized that to save these children, she must help their entire family. She raffled off her own belongings to start Associação Saúde Criança Renascer (Brazil Child Health Association) in 1991. Despite early resistance from social workers who felt she was interfering, Vera persevered, recruiting and training volunteers who, together with the staff of Saúde Criança, worked one-on-one with poor families to give them dignity and self-sustainability.

IMPACT AS OF JAN. 2013:

Saúde Criança’s model has been replicated at 23 other institutes in 6 states across Brazil. Since inception, Saúde Criança has helped more than 43,000 people. Saúde Criança has 10 franchises in Brazil, along with an office in New York, Brazil Child Health.
Saúde Criança’s methodology was incorporated into public policy in Belo Horizonte and later adopted in Rio de Janeiro.
In its program, family income increased by an average of 35% and number of days in the hospital decreased by more than 60%.
Learn more: http://www.saudecrianca.org.br/en/blog/release/metodologia-do-saude-crianca-e-destaque-mundialmente-2/

SEE THEIR WORK IN ACTION:

Brazil is a such a divided country, and such an inequality. One of the worst in the world.

In Rio de Janeiro we have around like 10 million people. One third of the population live in the miserable condition.

If something happens to these families that live below the poverty line they have no slack.

These family facing terrible choices. Feeding a child versus buying medicine for another child.

I can solve things that are related to disease in the hospital. But outside the hospital, its the real world.

They leave the hospital and they can die anyway, because they did not eat well, because they don't have enough money to get back to the hospital... continue the treatment.

I saw this vicious cycle - hospitalization, re-hospitalization many times. And I knew we need to do something. And then I said, we decided to change completely the environment where the children and the poor family live.

And to change completely, we have to work in many areas, in a very integrated form.

It is not enough to have a heart, and to try to get something done for the poor. It has to be done right.
What has kept me involved with with Renascer is my belief that Renascer can do it.

They can break a lot of vicious circles of health problems, poverty, and lack of education. And Renascer knows how to do it in a way that others can do it elsewhere.

It's not a local thing. It is really a global approach.

It begins here in the hostel, when we have the first interview with the mother, I or the psychologist can say, we have a family here who really needs Renascer.

When a mother comes to Renascer, they spend a time in a very deep interview
when we try to know everything about how much she earns, what kind of house she has and, of course, the disease of her child.

We listen to them and we plan with the family an action plan that takes place during two years.

They come many times to En Mounts for psychological support, legal support, to have medicine, to make some professionalization courses, to improve the house.

It's hard to understand their reality is so much suffering.

They have to fight to live everyday.

Nice. Isn't that one thing. The house was in a bad condition. We started to help her to improve her house.

So, Mateos was able to have come for to study.

He loves to study.

She is so brilliant in the hair courses that she did at Renascer. So, we build a saloon in her house to help her to have her own income generation.

I've been the chairman of the art department for sixteen years. I am very lucky because I can see the difference between BR and AR. Sixty percent of child that usually was in the hospital they are not in the hospital anymore.

The PR department was always proud. It change completing.

In a ways, the sheer power of the concept and the impact to demonstrate the impact it has. The average wages of a family went up by almost 50%.

My dream for this is to see grow. If when Renascer achieves the goal of working with every single hospital in Brazil the results would be amazing.

Because countries of 1000 of children that were gonna have no chance at developing themselves into productive citizens, will have a chance.

When you think about how to change the world we think about big miracles. A lot of money, a lot of technology.

We don't need that . We need small miracles every day.

And step by step, we can end poverty in this world.

With the technology that we have already, with the simple methodology that we need to transform the world, and with the willingness to do that, we can change the world.

Skoll Foundation

Associação Saúde Criança

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