Close to 30 involved including employees, service providers, consultants, directors and advisors. Together, we make our daily lives an ongoing fight for the same cause: promoting the healthy and complete development of children. This is how it has been since 1996. Each year we improve our knowledge, make new achievements and strengthen bonds, and we always strive for more. See what 2014 was like.
Looking back at the 365 days of 2014, we at the Criança é Vida (Child is Life) Institute have at least 43,755 reasons to celebrate. This was the number of people who directly benefited from our actions last year. We helped 24,536 children and 19,219 families, an 8% increase in assistance compared to the prior year. In all, we worked with 558 institutions, meaning an even larger number of work fronts, since an institution can be involved in more than one project.
We accomplished all this investing our income to carry out projects and directly pay professionals involved in their execution. In addition, with an inventory control system that makes it possible to reuse posters without having to reprint them, we were able to lower the cost per individual of our projects from R$18.24 to R$14.25 for the year.
BDO RCS Consultores Independentes handles our financial audit and also endorses our social numbers. We are very proud of this work, which was developed in 2003 with our auditor at that time – PricewaterhouseCoopers – allowing us to present our social results in a transparent way since 2004. After all, as one of our directors says, the profit of a social organization such as ours is measured by the number of people it is able to reach. And this number needs to be presented as transparently and reliably as possible.
And it was with the certainty of a mission accomplished, that on the 8th of the month, in our General Assembly Meeting attended by our founding members, partners, advisors and directors, we presented our 2014 Activity Report.
Although these are numbers that provide us with great satisfaction since they reflect the scope and growth of our work, alone they are not able to adequately express the entire impact our actions can have on the lives of each of the people involved.
We were active in several cities and states of the country in 2014, but our most noteworthy project took place in Trairi, in the state of Ceará. With the financial support of Eólica Faísa and the BNDES, we multiplied our Viver Bem (Living Well) project in all the municipal schools with children from 7 to 9 years of age in the municipality. It was fascinating to get to know another Brazil and share our knowledge. And tremendously gratifying to hear the results of our work.
Our methods and the simple language used to address important and delicate matters with children was one of the major differences of the project. This is the opinion of Ubiratã Diniz Aguiar School director Gardênia Santos Soares. “You have a special way of addressing complex issues – doing everything in a calm way. Everything is dealt with in a clear way. The children are really learning things that I am sure they will benefit from their entire lives,” says the director.
For Trairi Secretary of Education Gerciê Castro, the change in the lives of the children and all those dealing with them in school was immediately apparent. “There were no more reports of dirty children smelling like urine. It is incredible, but the guidance on hygiene had a great effect. The project is wonderful!,” she says.
The year 2015 is off to a fast start. We continue enthusiastically to grow even more and help children grow up better.