|
Pastoral da Criança’s Coordinator participates
in UN Assembly
Dr.
Zilda Arns Neumann, Pastoral da Criança’s
National Coordinator, will participate in the UN General
Assembly’s Special Session on Children, next week,
in New York. This Session is dedicated to children and
adolescents of the world, and its general theme is Children
in the New Millennium – Environmental Impacts on
Health.
Children’s
well-being will be addressed by Dr. Zilda in two presentations,
on May 8 and 9, starting at 12:15 pm (Brasilia time).
On the 8th, she will end the panel “Healthy Mothers,
Healthy Babies”, where she will talk about the
strategies used by Pastoral da Criança/Brazil
to reduce infant/children and mother mortality, as a
Unicef’s guest. On the 9th, she will take part
in the panel “Improving the Health Environment
for Children”, upon invitation of the Brazilian
government, whose delegation will be headed by the Ministry
of Education, Paulo Renato de Souza.
Pastoral
da Criança is a social action body of CNBB (The
National Conference of Bishops of Brazil) that carries
out a monthly follow-up of 76,842 impoverished expectant
mothers and 1,635,461 children under 6, in 32,743 communities,
in 3,555 Brazilian municipalities. The volunteer work
of more than 155 thousand people has resulted in an
infant/child mortality rate below 13 deaths, in the
first year of life, for every one thousand babies born
alive in these communities. According to Unicef, Brazil’s
infant/child mortality rate is 34.6 deaths in the first
year of life for one thousand babies born alive. At
the same time, the malnutrition rate among the children
followed-up has been dramatically diminished. Currently,
14 countries are developing or implementing the Pastoral
da Criança experience: Angola, Guinea-Bissau
and Mozambique, in Africa; Argentina, Paraguay, Chile,
Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, in South
America. The sum of these results and social mobilization
generated through the Pastoral da Criança’s
work has led to its second official nomination for the
Peace Nobel Prize by the Brazilian Government.
The
2002 Special Session on Children will bring together
leaders, heads of state, and NGOs from all over the
world. Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann, Coordinator of Pastoral
da Criança will analyze and propose actions to
ensure health and citizenship for needy children and
their families, which will hopefully translate into
a more just world.
The
event will discuss and analyze challenges and perspectives
regarding the situation of children and adolescents,
and will include their participation. The purpose is
to assess possible ways in which to provide quality
basic education and to create opportunities for all.
A revision of advancements made in favor of children
in the past decade, since the 1990 Children’s World
Summit, the World Declaration on Children Survival,
Protection, and Development and its Action Plan will
also be carried out.In the past ten years, through the
work of more than 155 volunteers, Pastoral da Criança
made real contributions to reach the worldwide goals
set at the Children’s Summit. Among them are the
reduction of infant/child mortality, particularly due
to malnutrition; the reduction of respiratory infections
and diarrhea and mother mortality; the increase of breast
feeding and prenatal care; the number of literates,
particularly among young people and adults; the increase
of inoculation rates among children and expectant mothers;
the eradication of diseases like polio; increased children
development activities based on the family and the community;
and an increased social mobilization to strengthen a
culture of peace in the more than 32 thousand communities
where Pastoral da Criança develops its work.
Dr.
Zilda Arns Neumann stresses the importance of this opportunity
to talk about quality of life for children and the experience
of forming solidarity networks as a means of achieving
solutions at one of the most important events in the
world. In her own words, “Pastoral da Criança
is an involving organization and it works to the extent
that it involves all segments of society and asks for
their commitment in order to change reality”. In
her presentations, the national coordinator also advocates
the idea that the national debts of underdeveloped and
developing countries account for the tapping of resources
that should otherwise be invested in the development
of social projects in health, education, housing, creation
of jobs and environmental conservancy. “Only then
will children truly become the seeds of peace for the
world”, she argues.
The
complete versions of Dr. Zilda Arns Neumann’s presentations
at the UN Special Session on Children are available
at the links below.
Speech for Improving Children's Environmental Health
Pannel
Speech for Healthy mothers, healthy babies Pannel
|
