Founded in 1991 „ARCO Associação Beneficente“ is a children’s emergency based in the south of São Paulo in one of the poorest and most criminal areas of the city. Everyday life is dominated by poverty. Single mothers leave their homes early in the morning to work as housekeepers in the city. Children take adult jobs to support their families. The entrances to the houses look like rubbish dumps. ARCO looks after almost 600 children and youths from deprived families aged between 1 and 18 years. With full-day care for children up to the age of 6 and the half-day care for children up to the age of 18, ARCO provides a safe place for the children and prevents child labour.

Within the functional facilities, the children are educated, nourished and encouraged towards a job training to help them towards a promising future. ARCO employs professionals from the fields of education, psychology, logopaedia, nutrition, social work, health care, music and sports. Many children live in unsteady family circumstances (60% of the children have only their mother to rely on). As a result, ARCO is providing valuable social support in the Favelas in order to give children a place of happiness.

We want to help ARCO to support the children and young people in their personal, social and educational development. We intend to finance a project each year.

In 2017, we started our support by sending 600 Christmas-Boxes with clothes, toiletries, and toys. In 2018 we supported career orientation workshops for pupils in the graduation class. Since 2019 we are supporting motivated students in financing their studies. Our first scholar was Kaique (born 2000) who studied chemotechnology at the university of Santo Amaro and successfully graduated in December 2020. At the beginning of 2020 we supported Arco with the renovation of the roof of the main school building. Unfortunately, Corona also hit Brazil and especially the favelas were hit hard. Therefore, we financially supported Arco several times in their efforts to distribute food packages for the families in need. For the end of the year, we also financed several Christmas-Boxes with food and toiletries but also with a nice toy for the kids. Since 2021 we have a new scholar, Tatiana. She is studying psychology and will graduate in 2023.