Berkley Center

This is a guest post by Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann, founder and president of Pastoral da Criança. It is part of Religion and Global Development Project survey of Latin American Faith-Based institutions at the Berkley Center.

We always work closely with the government. One of my children is a doctor. For 19 years now, he’s been working with the Pastoral, and he cross-references the Pastoral information with information from the government.

Once a month, our community leaders meet to evaluate our training techniques. We have “The Leader’s Book” where we have 26 indicators, all of which are computerized. So even after the first meeting, I had to show our impact, results— because I didn’t have any money or resources to keep this going. So then I realized that we needed a database not only to create statistical information and to get financial support, but also to encourage our own leaders and volunteers. So, during our first meeting, we created a database, which originates in the leader. So, every three months, our system would produce results from 43,000 communities in Brazil, which comprise more than 6,000 parishes, or more than 260 dioceses, in 27 states and the federal district. All these leaders, every three months, receive a letter, which I signed until last year, as the national coordinator. So this letter says “Dear leader: Congratulations! Maternal breastfeeding is at 80%” or whatever the database produced, or “Be careful! Maternal breastfeeding is weak, at 20%... So visit pregnant women, visit mothers within a week after delivery, so that they don’t use a baby bottle with their children.”

We have a newspaper, of which we print 270,000 copies; it comes out monthly, and I think it’s around 20 pages long. We use it to exchange our experiences, and we hand it out together with the letter for leaders.

Every three months we have a radio program on 2,400 stations that transmits for 15 minutes a week giving the same message as in the newspaper. And the same message is reinforced during house visits every month, because when individual education is combined with mass education, the result is stronger. I wanted to say that the Pastoral’s methodology is the art of success. We identify leaders, who are in turn trained in faith and life, and then we distribute, we democratize knowledge and solidarity. We attract local resources, generally related to the health system because—as I was director for 27 years before starting the Pastoral—I always felt that there was a lack of local community networks working for us.

So our information system has indicators, for example, that a pregnant woman went to a healthcare center and was not helped, so we note that she wasn’t helped and why: because the doctor wasn’t there, because it was too crowded, and so forth. If a pregnant woman dies during delivery, we also track down why, the history of this woman. It’s all computerized. So this is what happens… the woman went to the health center for pre-natal care, and she already had pains, but was sent back home. She went back, but was told that it wasn’t time yet and sent her back home. And then she died. Then what we do is record the “Legal reason for not seeing the woman.” So we go to the local Health Council to complain. If it was the doctor’s mistake, we go to the Medicine Council… so this doesn’t happen again.

We intervene in public policies. The leaders—for example, this happened in one community that I visited—the doctor had poor bedside manner yet he was a good doctor. The kids got better, but he always treated everybody really badly, especially the Pastoral. So the leaders, all wearing the white Pastoral T-shirt, white being the color of peace, and the cross, symbol of fraternal work, they all went to see him and asked to speak with him. He asked them to wait until the end. They had a birthday cake, and they sang “Happy birthday” to him. “It’s your birthday today, and we’re very happy that you see our children, that you have saved them, and we would like to thank you.” A complete transformation took place in this doctor’s personal life, in the way he treated people. So all actions started by Pastoral need to have faith, life, and human warmth.

Here we mentioned how sometimes the church and the government work separately. In my case, as a public servant, I’ve always worked together with both. After two years, UNICEF—which was the only one helping us financially—told us that they couldn’t give us any more money. The bishop and I decided to talk with the government—it was during the dictatorship—and the government was against my brother, Don Paulo, who defended the political prisoners. So the government was against the Church, and my brother received a death threat. Anyway, we went to see the government and told them “We’ve reduced mortality, malnourishment, we organize vaccination programs, and other things. But now we need money to publish our books.”

So after all this they suggested the formation of a partnership. And so some sectors of the Church said “How is it possible that the Childhood Pastoral is going to form a partnership with a corrupt government, with the dictatorship.” The Church’s Permanent Council—which is composed of all regional presidents—called me and asked me to explain this whole issue. I said “The Pastoral reduces suffering and saves lives. The government works with money taken out of our pockets. The money belongs to the people. It’s better for this corrupt and dictatorial government to spend money through the Pastoral than to waste it on other corrupt things.” So they voted; there were 13 bishops, and twelve voted in favor and one against the project.