On Monday, I made my announced visit to one of the three SOS Children Villages that exist in and around Rio de Janeiro. By coincidence I visited the village in the small borough of Rio de Janeiro called "Itanhangá" - the place where I spent four years of my life (2001-2004). It was great to see the important work that the organization is doing there. After being shown around their facilities, I had the chance to speak to some of the volunteers and children. Unfortunately, the center in Itanhangá has a great lack of funding and volunteers. The facilities were closed for that last years as a drug gang took hold of it and now have to be renovated before they can be used again to their full potential. The ongoing work currently only allows to house14 children from the ages of 10 until 15 (in the past more than 100 children used to live there). Next to the houses, the center also has a little school to which people from surrounding neighborhoods tend to come. Currently, around 50 students attend lessons in Portuguese, Math, History and English in the morning and sport activities in the afternoon. The problem with the school is that the children do not turn up on a regular basis. This makes the work with them hard, as only little progress can be made.

This visit to the SOS Children’s Villages Itanhanga showed me once more how important it is to put great effort in the work with children, as each volunteer can have a great influence on the future life of each child. The problem with the lack of volunteers here in Brazil is especially difficult, as the group of wealthier people does not really seem to have this thinking of helping people in need without asking anything in return. But you can help the children! When sponsoring a child for a month, the child can live in the center, for example in Itanhangá, can receive education and guidance and is hopefully brought onto a better path for the future. In Itanhanga the facilities are present, but the funding is missing. I am sure that this is not the only SOS Children’s Village with this problem. I'm looking forward to find out throughout my journey to other SOS Children Villages soon.