Casa Grande

On the 21^st September Natercia Correia, a fourth year language student from Hexham, studying at Newcastle University, gave the Club an interesting and informative presentation about her time spent in South America and volunteering at the Casa Grande Association in Brazil (The Casa Grande Associacao). The Club had supported her financially in her wish to help this charity. Her family are Portuguese and she speaks the language which was a great asset during her time in Brazil. Her host was Rtn Michael Saxon

The Casa Grande Association is located in the state of Bahia, in the north east of Brazil, at a town called Lençóis, a seven hour bus journey from the nearest town of Salvador.

Lençóis is a very poor town where many of the children either had no parents or had parents who were very young. The association’s objective is to provide a learning space where the young children of the town can feel welcome, safe and get off the streets.

The children served by the Association generally came from broken backgrounds or homes and this meant that they had behavioural issues. Volunteers were told to not expect anything and to not take anything the children said to heart. During her period of volunteering there were many fights between families and the kids reacted to situations through aggression rather than talking about it. Drugs and alcohol play are present in Brazilian society and the children are constantly exposed to this. With the lack of contraception and sex education, many young girls become pregnant adding to existing hardships.

At the end of the presentation Natercia was asked a variety of interesting questions by members and received a vote of thanks from her host and warm applause from those present.

            Casa Grande has a Facebook web page https://www.facebook.com/bighouselencois