Thursday, June 14, 2012

Getting Our Hands Dirty

May 24, 2012


On Tuesday, our first full day at CREN, we met with Paula the center´s pediatritian and were introduced to some of the children at the center. The first was a little girl named Victoria who was severely malnourished and as a result suffered from a very poorly functioning immune system. Because her mother felt that she had nothing to give Victoria, she refused to feed her anything much but breast milk for the entire first year of her life. As a result, Victoria had difficulty eating and accepting the solid foods provided to her by CREN. As I watched her cry in Paula´s lap and heard the story of how she came to the center, I became extremely emotional and almost started to cry myself.
We then saw a little boy named Victor who was a year or so older, but even more lethargic than she was. He came from an abusive home and had five other siblings. He suffered from a number of ear infections, respiratory problems and had dental caries that made it difficult for him to eat solid foods. Seeing these children was an incredibly moving experience for me. I remember thinking that it was nothing like reading about the symptoms of malnourishment in class, because they were no longer words on a page. Now they were transformed into a living, breathing human being, staring back at me.

         


Many of the children at the CREN center grow up in the favelas, or slums, of Sao Paulo. On Wednesday, we visited one of these favelas and a community center that had been built within it for use by the residents. I was unable to bring my camera that day as I was told it was not safe. Earlier that day there had been a strike due to the shooting of a subway driver, so tensions in the city were very high and transportation was difficult. We could only take the subway half way to the center itself, so we had to walk two miles or so, then take a small bus to the favela. Two women who worked at the center, a dietitian named Carolina and a student studying to be a dietitian, escorted us to the community center. The favela was nothing like I expected it to be. The conditions were very dangerous, with low hanging wires and poorly constructed overhangs. The air smelled damp and there were stray dogs running freely. The entire favela was very claustrophobic, no car would be able to fit on the dirt walkways between the homes that were stacked one on top of another.
I noticed that there were a number of construction workers with bulldozers working right next to the section of homes we were walking through, and it was not until we reached the community center that I learned what they were doing. As the residents of the favelas are squatting illegally and not paying to live there, the government will often come without notice and bulldoze sections of homes at random. Imagine waking up one morning in your bed, and by noon that day everything is flattened to the ground. Where do these families even go when they have so little to begin with? It was very difficult for me to listen to and the thought still haunts me.
The good thing is that these families receive free medical care from the clinics that are built specifically for their use and professionals are able to monitor the health of each family member to intervene when necessary.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment