Objective of the project called “The little Girl’s house”, the most recent project of our Mission, is to welcome young girls, from 8 to 16 years of age, whose rights to live decently and with dignity have been violated.
Those girls live in the suburbs of Barbacena, in areas where the use of drugs, alchool and illegal actions are a normal practice. They live in conditions of extreme poverty and for this they are exposed more than anybody else to physical and moral risks only because they are girls. The young girls welcomed to the Mission bring on the body and in the soul the tragic signs of the abuses they experienced.
The majority of the families don’t have a job and live in the worst economical situation. The government gives them 85 Real (roughly 20 Euro) as “family aid”, but only for whom has children hence they need to find, day after day, a way to survive and get some food. Small contributions received from religious organizations or very few donations from privates help at least a bit.
Another fact is that in the same house the children are from two different parents and often the godfather is an alcoholic or drug addicted and this increase the risks for those girls that live in this context improperly called “family”.
The girls welcomed at the St. Michael the Archangel, despite their young age, already have a lived experience: their sufferences are already a mark in their body and soul. Some have the parents in jail, other already attempted suicide, all of them have on their body the scars of violence, mainly sex abuses and physical / psychological violences, lack of food and other atrocities that requires an immediate care and intervention.
Considering the urgency and the increasing demand, the Mission of St. Michael the Archangel started the project “CASA DELLE BAMBINE” (house of the little girls), with the objective to help the families to assist the girls in order to reduce the exposition to those risks and to provide to the teenager girls a more safe and quite home. The aim is to avoid they are victim of the environment in which they live.