Silvie in prison

For pictures click here

The state prisons in Brazil are awful. Not only in Brazil, as Angelika told me. Angelika is the leader of the prison ministry EMMAUS in Germany and I have accompanied her for 2 weeks as a translator when she visited a non-state, alternative prison in Itauna, Brazil.
Inside prison walls it is easier to get drugs than outside. Apart from the prisoners even the police and security personnel are dealing drugs. Often prisoners are forced to take drugs in order to make them dependant. They are daily faced with violence, mistreatment, humiliation and raping. Usually the prison cells are overloaded, if there are 12 beds, they put in 30 people. The conditions under which they have to live violate human rights and the prisoners are in constant fear because of the random treatment of security and police.
The prison which we visited is different
The prison that we visited was DIFFERENT in all aspects. At the entrance door it read in large letters “Only the human being as access here, the crime stays outside”. At the gate a prisoner opens the doors for us. By the way, all keys of the security doors are in the hands of prisoners. The motto of APAC (Associação de Proteção Aos Condenados, www.apacitauna.com.br, associated with Prison Fellowship International www.pfi.org) is to respect the human being, regardless of the crime he has committed, knowing that each of these persons has usually had an awful and very sad past and childhood and that it was not without a reason that they have become criminals. Knowing that the only thing that can actually help them is working up their past and healing of the trauma and injuries of the past. Unfortunately what happens in the public prisons is the exact opposite: the trauma that a person has not suffered yet he will suffer there. As far as crime is concerned they will learn everything they did not know yet from other prisoners. The old word “reformatory” that we use in the German language is highly ironic. Worldwide 90% of the prisoners released slide back, in Brazil it is 80%. This is also true for juvenile prisons.
I had the privilege to hear story after story about the prisoner’s pasts. Angelika, a catholic sister (the most unconventional and craziest one that I have ever met... and a person with whom there does not seem to exist a gap between Catholics and Protestants!) had offered prayer and talking to the prisoners at the chapel of the prison. There was such a high demand! Most of them started out telling what a happy childhood and good family they had. And then, all of a sudden things come up that really make you stop wonder why they are in jail.
For me this visit was very intense and extremely moving. The stories that the people there told us are exactly the ones of the kids that we work with at GENESIS. I have been motivated once again for our work. I realized that if we manage to help the street kids process the horrible experiences and the pain today, and if we can help them to stand on their own feet then they are not going to jail tomorrow.
The prisoners that we had the privilege meeting at APAC, Itauna, just vaguely reminded of criminals. Merely in the sense that some of them have remained a bit of a rascal. They are given the opportunity to attend (elementary !!) school, can benefit from psychological services, from weekend seminars that help them face and work up their past, the Catholic and Protestant churches offer regular services, they benefit from dentists and medical care. All of these services and more are OFFERED BY VOLUNTEERS!! Apart from a handful of employees which are indispensable, all workers are offering their services voluntarily. It is part of the APAC concept and an expression of true love and respect for the prisoners. People who come from crime have very little trust in people who do their job for money. But all the volunteers that sacrifice their time to even visit the prisoners regularly, the respect and trust with which they get treated breaks even the hardest hearts. For the first time in his live the prisoner experiences something that he should have experienced in his childhood but never has. He learns to be responsible, starts to stand on his own feet and discovers his value, dignity and abilities. Even though the keys are in their own hands, no-one takes flight. And by the way, there is not one police or security officer. The prisoners encourage each other to live a better life. One of them told us that it was actually easy for drugs to enter inside prison walls (because of the great trust the controls are quite loose). However it is practically impossible for anyone to consume those drugs. And this is not because of the supervisors but because of the fellow prisoners.
I could write endlessly about what they do all day long, about hilarious methods and rules that the prisoners invented by themselves, and so on. One thing I would like to mention: the backslide quota at APAC is between 13 and 20% (one figure is with, the other without the APAC method).

It was a highly interesting and moving time. A true blessing. I had never before thought about our prisons and the people that are in there. But I have come to the conclusion that our society carries a lot of guilt as well. There are people in our direct neighborhood that live on the edge, socially and economically, and neither do we attempt to understand their situation nor do we even try to help them.

Interview with Assiria, Pelé´s wife

[from left to right: Fernanda, Assiria, Silvie]

Well, this was quite a thing, Damaris rang me and asked me if I would do an interview with Pelé´s wife Assiria for a European magazine. It was very thrilling, everybody knows Pelé, but few people know that his wife is a wonderful, gifted and very successful woman. Amongst other things she is a singer and has released several albums. It was a highly interesting conversation that we had. Fernanda, one of our brazilian leaders of the project and her husband Ney were also there, Fernanda helped in the interview and Ney recorded it all! The interview is only available in German, if you would like to check it out anyway, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Xmas Campaign

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With all of my heart I would like to thank all those wonderful people who participated and have donated towards the campaign!! We were able to give Xmas gifts to around 200 children and their families, that was absolutely great!

New Chance Tour November 2005

The tour was a blast, I had just come back to Europe and had the opportunity to accompany Damaris Kofmehl (founder of our project and author of many books, some of them about street kids) on a tour through Germany and Switzerland promoting our project. The other two people on the road with us were Harold Rigsbee who had also worked in our project in Sao Paulo for quite a while and Patricia Wieser, a woman from Brazil who has a deeply moving life story to tell. She had grown up in a slum in the Northeast of Brazil and had to live a lot of suffering before God helped her out of this situation. Today she is married and lives with with her two children and her husband in Germany.
As you can tell from the PICTURES she still has not gotten used to the cold climate in Europe and in one of the functions she even wore gloves all the way through... :) Another one of our functions took place in Spiez (Swiss Alps) and so we had the opportunity to gaze at the beautiful rocky skyline during the day!

Here comes the 2nd letter, finally...

Here comes the 2nd letter, finally... Not from Sao Paulo this time, but from Lörrach in southern Germany.

I have been back from Brazil for over a month now, my 3-month tourist visa had expired and I’m trying to get a 1-year visa right now. If everything goes fine, I would like to go back again in January.

In the meantime, I’m not sitting around bored... J but I enjoy the time with my parents and my sisters a lot. It is so nice to see them more often and with more time. In November our project will be touring in Switzerland in order to present the work that we do, and since I’m here anyway I will be joining them!

A lot of people have asked for the second chapter about the occupied house... here it is:

Around 30 of us had gathered in front of the burnt down school sometime between 4 and 5 in the morning with candles, banners and the mandatory guitar J Most of the over 70 families that lived there were already up and some of them were downstairs in the front yard. It was quite cold and we were waiting to see when the police would arrive in order to start with the eviction. One family hat already loaded a pickup and drove away before they would get kicked out.

Damaris was there to film with her camera and our Brazilian leaders Ney and Fernanda kept staying in contact with the leader of the occupied building in order to find out what would happen next. The gate in front of the school building had not been locked yet, and they explained to us that they would lock it as soon as the police arrived in order to make a statement and let people know that they would not leave voluntarily. Usually the police then breaks open the locks and they don’t exactly treat people with care when they kick them out.

We realised this when one ambulance after the other started to pull into the street and park there and in the area. And I’m not talking about a few small ambulance cars, some of them were huge buses like I’ve only seen them in operations with huge accidents. That made us you wonder what on earth these people were up to...

A little while later, just as many moving trucks pulled in and were parking wherever they could find space.

After that, nothing happened for the longest time. It became light outside and we were still holding our candles and were singing like crazy J . More and more people from the school hat gathered in the yard downstairs behind the iron fence and at one point they gave us a big hand and applauded in order to thank us, that really moved me. We also knew some of their kids that we had taken to the camp the week before. Then they locked the iron gate.

One thing we didn’t find out until later was that one of the judges that apparently have to be present for such an eviction kept driving his car through that street, trying to make sense of this “strange” group of strangers with their candles and their singing... It looked like they had never seen any such thing before and were quite insecure.

More and more “important” people from the city, the police and from wherever, and journalists had gathered in front of the school and someone said they were negotiating whether the eviction could be postponed or not. Unfortunately this was not possible in the end, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference though whether it would happen that day or another.

When it became clear that the house would be evacuated now, the situation started to get serious. I don’t know if I have ever seen so many police and so-called military police on one spot. The military police were wearing shields, helmets, bats and knee-high boots. The street looked rather bizarre, people that lived there, other people that just walked past, the moving service guys and our group were all standing there, feeling tense and waiting to see what would happen next.

Then, around noon, the police broke the lock on the iron gate open. A lot of the families in the school yard cried, holding each other. We even saw how one guy from the moving company and a policeman cried. Many of our group cried as well, there had been such a tenseness and we had waited in the cold forever, hoping that the eviction could be avoided after all.

The rest of the eviction went rather peaceful. People carried their belongings out of the house in order to load it on the trucks. Apparently everything got stored in warehouses and the people were able to get their things back from there within a certain period of time. The school got sealed off with planks and a guard is watching over the building day and night (at least until I left this was still the case).

Some of the families that we knew built very scanty shacks. Pastor Ney and his wife Fernanda visited them there a short while after they had moved there. Of course they were lacking even the most basic things, above all some decent food. So Ney and Fernanda decided to bring them food packages and I was able to go along to deliver them. The former leader of the occupied school was there too, and I thought he was kind of a tough guy. But when we brought the food, he had tears in his eyes and he thanked us that we were there for them.

I believe the fact that a group of young people simply stood up for people that don’t usually get heard has moved all parties involved very deeply and has had a great impact. A lot of people told us, that to them it was a complete miracle how peaceful the whole eviction had taken place, and maybe that miracle was greater than the one we had secretly prayed and hoped for.

I think that if I was ever really proud of having made a difference and something that really made sense, it was then.

I am very fond of the great team I am privileged to work with in Sao Paulo and I’m already very much looking forward to go back. There is so much to do, so many ideas and our leaders have great plans I think. And yet a lot of things are still at the beginning. At least that will keep it interesting!

There is so much more to tell, actually I had planned on writing one page only, this time... It didn’t work, huh. (Or ey, for the Canadian readers J ) But I’ll save the rest for another letter.

Thank you guys by the way for all your responses on the last letter, I was really pleased to get so much feedback!

Hope to see you soon,
Silvie

Greetings from São Paulo!

Have arrived here safelz (with 12 hours delay J) and have already experienced so much and been so busy that it took me forever to finally sit down and write you this mail!

Right now we have about 30 teenagers over from Europe and the states, that are doing internships at the project for anywhere between 2 and 4 weeks.

In our first week we have shown everybody around and they took part in the daily activities. For instance we made about 100 sandwiches and brouhgt them and some juice to people who are living underneath highway bridges. Some of the people have made wholes in the bridge and they climb up there with a rope and sleep in there. It is unbelievable!

I was extremely moved by how grateful EVERYBODY was, when we came with the juice and sandwiches. The day we went there it was one guy´s birthday, so we sang happy birthday to him and prayed for him for God to bless him. He and one of his friends were so moved, they had a hard time not to cry. We told him that it was not by chance that we had come that particular day and that God really wants to bless his lie.

On another day we went and visited empty buildings, that had been invaded, for instance a former school house that had burnt down. People have built small shelters in there and about 70 families live there! We had again brought Sandwiches and juice and had a small church service.

In the second week we all went away for a camp with the teenagers from Europe and US, togehter with a lot of street kids and some of the families that live in the invaded school house. The teenagers had to pay something for their internship in Brazil and that also helped cover the costs for the street people to come to the camp. It was absoluetly AMAZINGZ!!

The camp took place on a large hacienda, in the middle of nature, very beautiful landscape. They had horses there and the kids were able to ride horses every afternoon, they have a swimming pool, a main house with the kitchen, dining room, a game room with pool and soccer tables, and then several dorms. It was SO beautiful there!

One afternoon, Demetri (Founder of New Chance International) has filmed and interviewed some of the kids. He asked them, what they had liked best about the camp so far. One kid said, that he was able to eat 5 times a day, the other said that he so much enjoyed being able to go to a soft bed every night (one of us had just complained about how hard the beds were...) Another kid said, he liked how fresh the air was and all the beautiful nature, and one kid said, he liked that here there was no violence.

It was just so amazing to see the kids goof around in the swimming pool and to know how their normal life looks so much different. It broke my heart to think that actually every kid should be able to grow up like that, like the kind of life we lived during the camp, without violence, with loving people around them, enough food, a soft bed and a roof over their heads.
The german, swiss, british and american teenagers didn´t know much Portuguese, but we were all sharing rooms with the street kids and families and we decided that every teenager should ´pick´ one or two children or adults as their special friends during the camp. And then there was a competition on which friend would teach the foreign teenagers the best Portuguese J It was EXTREMELY funny....

We shared the room with 3 girls, sisters, that are 10 kids at home, and NCI had just finished building a house for them. Their oldest brother Michel had been living on the streets for about 6 or 7 years, because their home had been so horribel. NCI had met him a couple of years ago already, but when they went to his house for the first time, they understood why he had left to live on the streets and decided to builde them a hous. In the meantime, they all live hat home again, isn´t that just GREAT??

The 3 sisters usually slept all coverd up under some blankets, as street people usually do. On the last night, when I came into our room, I was so moved. We had had a childrens party in the afternoon, where the staff had disguised as all sorts of figures like Snowwhite, Clowns and so on. And we had face painted most of the kids. When I cam into our room I was so moved that I almost cried, the youngest one lay in bed, fast asleep with such a happy and calm expression on her face, both arms stretched out, and some of the paint was still in her face. I can only say that to live such a moment was worth coming to Brazil a million times!

It is just so incredible to see what a difference love and friendship can do in people´s lives in just a few days. The most amazing change happened in the lives of the people that had given their lives to Jesus during the camp.

For example Elisangela. She is 20 years jung, has already 3 kids and is pregnant with the 4th one. In the beginning, to be honest, I didn´t even like her so much... She was quite negative and yelling at her kids. She was really touched by the services we had and she cried a lot. And then she said that she wanted to turn her life over into Gods hands!

But later, when I was translating for her and her friend, she had quite a funny attitude, negative again, and said that this time at the camp and the services were great and all, but when she would go back to the streets, as well as everybody else, they would go back to the same life as before. Her friends name is Vicky, she´s from Germany. Vicky tried to explain to her that God was in her life and that he cared and that he would like to make a difference in her life, if she let him. But she kept being negative and said that she had been to many churches, but all of them are prejudiced against street people and do nothing to help. (Unfortunately this seems to be true here.) Vicky couldn´t acceppt this, and she was so moved and she cried real hard and asked her to at least give it a try and have God do a miracle in her life. But Elisangelas attitude was weird, it seemed like she didn´t want to give it a try anymore.

On the last night we had another beautiful service outdoors by a campfire. And at the beginning Elisangela stood up in front of everybody and said, that she wanted to thank one person here: Vicky. She told us how she had come to the camp with a pretty much resigend attitude, thinking that at the most she might have some fun. She didn´t think her life made any sense, she had been trying to kill herself before, she didn´t like her kids or the baby she was expecting. She also lives in this former school house, and the police wants to kick everybody out of there (this will be tomorrow, Tuesday!).

But then she had come to the camp and met everyone, including people that had come all the way from foreign countries and had made so much effort, especially Vicky. She had at first thought, that people´s caring was fake, but she was so moved that some people even cried for her, and through Vickys tears she had become aware that the people here really cared about their lives. She thanked all of us for having made this camp possible and for coming all the way from other countries in order to encourage them and tell them that God loves them and that he is NOT indifferent about their lives. She said she had been touched and changed by that and that she had new courage and hope that her life will change for the good.

I simply don´t have words to descriebe what is happening here! The interesting thing was, after these 5 days at camp I all of a sudden really liked Elisangela, she had changed so much, even the negative expression on her face had disappeard and she was more radiant than ever!

Yesterday we had gone back to the invaded school house, and it was great to se a lot of the kids and adults again. Elisangela told mit that other people from the house had already asked her, what had happened to here, because she had become so different in a positive way. They had been wondering why she did not start to fight with other people in the kitchen (they have one kitchen for the whole house), and why she was not yelling at her kids anymore!!

Unfortunately the police will clear the house tomorrow and kick everybody out. It is absolute madness, like that, another 72 families will be back on the streets again. The city just doesn´t take sensible decisions sometimes, they do not have enough social appartments that were built for the poor – and that often times the wrong people are getting... It just doesn´t make ANY sense.

The people that live in the school did thank us though for coming, but some of the accused us of not doing anything against this whole situation. They said it was not enough for us to tell them God was able to make a difference in their lives and help them, but why WE would not be there for them on Tuesday morning. Which is right. But we had told them that all the teenagers were going to the beach from Monday through Wednesday, and we were not able to change all plans just like that. It left a lot of us really sad.

But this morning, when we wanted to get on the bus, somebody told us we had to wait for Damaris (Demetri´s wife), because there might be a change in the programme. We had to wait almost one hour. When she came, she and some brasilian staff of NCI had just come back from a meeting with the ´bosses´ of the invaded school. She told us, that we would not got to the beach, but stay here and go to the school tomorrow morning at 4,30 am in order to be with the people and support them so we would not only speak nice words to them, but stand up for them and do something. I am so happy about this!

The police will shut off the streets at about 5am an will not let anybody in. Our presence will help in several ways. Some journalists will be there for newspapers and TV. So we will write posters, letting people know which countries we are from and that we don´t agree with what is going on here. The other thing is that as soon as many foreigners are there, the police will think twice about beeing violent, the brazilian police is VERY different here, they are corrupt, and corruption does not stop with the politicians, government, courts and judges... So whenever foreigners are there, they are more precautious because it might be reported abroad.

Unfortunately they would not care about the children, they would beat anyone. NCI had offered the bosses at the school that all the kids go to the project tonight and stay there until tomorrow so they would be safer. But they didn´t want it, they want the newspapers and TV to see, that there are also kids involved, which will cause more awareness for their problems in the public.

The ones of you that would like to: please pray for this city and for a miracle to happen, so the people are not getting kicked out of this school!

I didn´t think that this letter would get so long, but thank you for reading it to the end. Now you know a little bit more about what we are doing here and what is happening in Sao Paulo.

I am doing very well, and it is a privilege to me to be able to live all this! Please understand that especially in July and August it is a bit difficult for me to get to the internet cafe in order to reply to all your messages. There are so many activities going on right now, espeacially with the teenagers that we have over here.

For the ones that I gave the phone number to, sorry, it doesn´t work, it had to be changed for security reasosn.

I will try to write to you soon and let you know what happend to the people at the school. Sending you lots of love and take good care of yourselves, ok?

Silvie