Prevent Youth Involvement in Drug Trafficking

Our activities continue at the Center, and on top of our regular tutoring, capoeira, computer and science classes, we host "playdate" sessions in the afternoons for the children to enjoy the court and release energy playing games like tag and sack races. 

As travel restrictions have loosened up, we are planning to reintegrate our volunteer program for teaching English this year as well. Thanks to your support, the Center never closed its doors as a safety hotspot for the community: during the worse of the pandemic, it became an information center, basic basket distribution center and vaccination location, and as public regulations allowed, we began hosting families again. We are excited to bring back this year if restrictions allow, our traditional family gatherings such as Festa Junina! these are important celebrations of culture in Brazil and have been a tradition of our Center and our community as a whole.

Thank you to our donors for sticking with us through thick and thin! Stay tuned for more stories of our community center.

We are very excited to announce that with the succesful roll-out of the COVID vaccine, the Julio Otoni Community Center has opened its doors to carry out our usual activitites in the community!

To avoid aglomerations, we have divided them into groups and receive 15 children in the morning and another 25 in the afternoon at different times. We have restarted our computer science classes, afterschool tutoring program, and capoeira workshop as well. 

As international measures loosen up as well, we are excited to reopen our international volunteering program so we can continue our English language classes with the kids as well!

We will be sharing photos and stories about our progress with you - we are so grateful to all our donors who have helped us continue our work after this difficult year, and most specially, to step up as a Community Center bringing basic health and food security services as the pandemic hit the favelas the hardest.