Besides Rio de Janeiro and Copacabana, there is another side of Brazil that is characterized by abject poverty and high crime.

The Franciscan monk Father Beda spent his life helping the disadvantaged and the poor in Brazil. And with his action group Pater Beda e.V. in Crato he launched the street children project “Verde Vida”.

Marcos Xenofonte, project manager of “Verde Vida”, has created rooms for school lessons and set up a kindergarten for the children from the mountain villages in the region around Ponta da Serra. Here they learn to write, read and even play a musical instrument.

The project has been supplemented with a training bakery from “Brot gegen Not”. Volunteer master bakers from the foundation trained the first young people. The bakery now provides the children with fresh bread and offers young people from the area the opportunity to learn the bakery trade – a basis for a future with better prospects.