Center for the Defense of Children’s Rights
As the Movimento de Emaus grew, educators learned that social services and education would never be enough to guarantee the human rights of poor and street children in Belém. The would have to encourage the government to play a more significant role. At the end of the 1980s, Emaus created the Center for the Defense of Children’s Rights to use new Brasilian laws to help children.
Center staff includes psychologists, social workers, and lawyers. They often sue the state, the schools, and the police in order to force them to obey the law, but the Center prefers to use less coercive methods. In the last several years, since a left wing government was elected in Belém, the Center has found that collaboration really works.
The Center was the first of its type in Brasil, but it has become a model for others, like the Hélder Câmara Center in Recife and the AA Criança in São Paulo.
Centro de Defesa dos Dereitos da Criança e Adolescente
Tv Padre Eutíquio 2742
Condor, Belém, PA 66045 110
Brasil
91 272 5896 o 272 2449
Contacto: Marisa Pinheiro, emaus@interconect.com.br
