Location: Vila dos Pescadores (Fishermen Village) is a maze of houses and shacks built on stilts on the Casqueiro River, in Cubatão, São Paulo. Many plots of land were filled in by the residents themselves. Some houses are already built in masonry, but there are still built in masonry, but there are many wooden shacks. More then a third of the men and women do not have a formal job. Survival activities include crab fishing and local informal trade. This neighborhood is a strategic place for drug trafficking because it is 5 miles from the largest port in the country, the Port of Santos and sits by the two busiest roads connecting the port to the great metropolis of São Paulo.

Time in frontline ministry: 33 years.

Vulnerable people she seeks to reach: the children and teens. Since drug trafficking is the largest source of income in this village, there is a tendency to recruit children to work for them. The vigilance of Christian workers in a safe place is crucial.

Strategy: before and after school programs, mentoring and skills training for teens, child abuse prevention and evangelism.

Background:

In 1990, Sandra Cristina left her job as a kitchen maid in a hospital in the region after being informed that, in her absence, her son Pedro, only 5 years old, was being used by traffic operators to take and pick up orders.

Sandra Cristina was overjoyed when the Salvation Army asked her to receive the children in her house for Sunday activities. Her house was a stilt shack built on the mangrove, which after a few months began to sink. Four mothers from the community, realizing the importance of the initiative, offered their houses for the activities to continue.

The owner of a bar offered his space, which became for some time the headquarters for the meetings, now held on other days of the week and serving a larger group of children.

From 1992, the project gained its own headquarters, acquired by the Salvation Army, which maintains the programs with a team of ten employees. Sandra Cristina joined the team in the early days and watched her son grow in a safe environment. He is now a lieutenant in the Salvation Army, in other words, a young pastor.

How has our ministry helped Sandra Cristina fulfill God’s call to her life?

She has been praying with us for the most vulnerable children since 2003 when our network started promoting a yearly global prayer campaign for children at risk. At the time, her son was a teenager. Every year, her team receives the campaign materials and leads the children in prayer and supplemental activities.

Child Safety Prevention: The Salvation Army has collaborated with us since the beginning of our ministry. Sandra Cristina has received the prevention-first training, Claves, to help mitigate the sexual violence present in her community.

James visited the project in 2019 to photograph and to subsequently publish their story to make it known to the rest of the church in Brazil and to the Salvation Army network world-wide.

Biggest challenge and greatest win:

Surviving the COVID 19 pandemic was a great challenge in an area where water is unsafe, food is scarce, and living conditions are crowded! Most of the community is unemployed and relies on informal commerce to survive. With lockdowns, this became even more problematic.

Her greatest joy has been to announce proudly that her son – her five-year old boy who was being drafted to work in the drug trafficking world – is now a grown man dedicated to minister the Gospel to the world in word and deed!

Written by: Elsie Gilbert

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