First foster family found!
Boy aged five becomes first child to benefit from pioneering fostering service in Brazil
Photo: ‘Matthew’ with his new foster mother. Many children could now receive a fresh chance at loving family life with a new fostering service. (ReVive International)
Five year old Matthew (name changed) has become the first child to benefit from the pioneering fostering service now being offered by ReVive, a charity set up by Church Mission Society mission partners in Brazil.
ReVive provides homes and protection for abused and vulnerable girls in Olinda, a city of around 400,000 people in the north-east of the country. The new fostering service, which was officially given the green light to proceed by the authorities in November 2021, is the fulfilment of ReVive’s vision to see vulnerable children cared for within a strong, high-quality, fostering service.
Tony Lewry, ReVive’s fostering coordinator said: “We are so incredibly excited to be launching our fostering service here in Olinda! We successfully started our foster parent training at the beginning of June and now, six months later, we can begin placing children in loving homes. There are so many vulnerable children in our city who desperately need a safe place to live. Our service will not only offer a safe place but a family environment which will create the atmosphere each child needs to overcome the challenges life has thrown at them.”
Initially, ReVive aim to be catering for children up to the age of six, but with experience the team hope they can increase the scope of the service they can offer. Lewry said, “Our hope is that by 2030 fostering is the primary form of full-time child-care in the city.”
Andy Roberts, Director of International Mission at Church Mission Society and co-founder of Revive, said: “Now seeing Matthew living in a safe home with loving parents justifies the many frustrations, long meetings and bureaucracy that at times we thought would defeat us.”
Currently fewer than five per cent of children in the care system in Brazil are cared for in foster families. However, the ReVive team were faced with multiple issues on the way to this landmark decision. Lewry explains, “Public awareness of fostering is low and politically, passing fostering legislation is understandably seen as a low priority.”
Revive now runs two homes and has supported over 75 girls by providing accommodation, protection and education, taking them out of danger and helping them to rebuild their young lives.
