Over the years, ABBA's work has taken on new forms but always maintains the same foundation. The involvement with those who lived on the streets led us to the creation of street approach projects, shelters, and the family shelter project. The search to prevent this street experience led to the creation of community centers on the outskirts of the city; the attempt to provide better living conditions for those who lived there led us to create a professional training project. Today, these are ABBA's four areas of action: prevention, intervention, protection, and formation. As steps are taken and changes take place, ABBA seems to get closer to its vision: to see every child, adolescent, and young adult in our country capable of fully developing in all dimensions of life, based on God's paternal care.

Prevenção

The metropolitan region of São Paulo, ABBA's main center of activity, has the highest concentration of favelas in Brazil (27%), reaching 2 million people living in this context. Material scarcity, health risks, little intellectual stimulation, abusive family relationships, low self-esteem, distorted social behaviors, are all indicators of an experience of broken relationships in the environmental, personal, social, and spiritual dimensions, which form the total of human existence.

In such a condition, full human development, especially of children and adolescents, is unsustainable. Our prevention projects work in direct contact with children and adolescents who live this reality. Each project provides the opportunity for these children and adolescents to find an environment of safe relationships, facilitating the provision of their material, mental, emotional, social, moral, and spiritual needs, and their full human development in family life.

Contribute to the defense of human dignity and the rights of children and adolescents at risk and social vulnerability.

Intervenção

According to a survey by the Department of Human Rights, in partnership with the Institute for Sustainable Development (IDEST), there are 24,000 homeless children and adolescents in Brazil. For children and adolescents, in particular, going to the street is a response to a situation of extreme poverty, abandonment, neglect, or violence imposed on them in the family environment. In this we see the causes and consequences of a life filled with broken relationships, preventing the full development of these children and adolescents. The effects of a wasted childhood or youth are lifelong and affect the whole of society. Faced with the rootless characteristic of the homeless situation, its main cause in family problems, and the difficulty of institutional care, we must turn to the strengthening and restoration of family relationships as the main work strategy.
Contribute to the defense of human dignity and the rights of children and adolescents living on the streets, minimizing the impacts of this situation.

Proteção

There are currently more than 33,000 children and adolescents in institutional care. Legally, negligence, abandonment, and violence on the part of the responsible adult form the criteria for the removal of custody. It is in this context that working with families of origin becomes so fundamental on our protection front. ABBA believes that the family of origin has priority in the care of their children, which is the best environment for human development. However, given these data, the family of origin does not always have the appropriate conditions to do so, which requires hard work to protect the rights of children and adolescents. ABBA's commitment to the family, since its origins in 1993, makes it a pioneer institution in the development of institutional and family care services. The value of the family is reflected in our efforts to assist families of origin to regain custody of their children; as well as in the pioneering work of promoting family care through the dissemination of information, the formulation of material, the organization of lectures and congresses until we reach the recruitment of families and the referral of children to foster families. For ABBA, at the heart of the value of the family for full human development is the belief in the divine project, which drives the commitment to ensure that every human being can live in a family.
Source: gov.br/cidadania/pt-br< /a>
Contribute to the defense of the rights of children and adolescents at risk and social vulnerability, supplying their material, mental, emotional, social, moral, and spiritual needs, so that they fully develop in all dimensions of life.

Formação

Several factors contribute to the characterization of a situation of risk and social vulnerability, the lack of professional qualification and unemployment are two of them. A meaningful picture demonstrates the relationship between these two factors and serious social conditions, such as high rates of informality, outsourcing, and instability, which weaken the workforce and economic potential of the individual, his family, and society as a whole. The concrete social impact of these conditions can be verified among the families who had their children referred to the institutional shelter service because their rights were violated in the family environment. In these families, 19% of parents or guardians are unemployed and only 12% of parents or guardians are formally employed. Such conditions tend to be repeated from generation to generation, creating a cycle of risk and social vulnerability, lack of professional qualifications and unemployment, and harm to the full human development of children and adolescents. All this motivated us to respond to this reality, and so we worked to create our professional training area for young people who are in this cycle.
Our training area aims to create and coordinate companies of professional excellence, offering high-quality products and services; to incorporate into our team young people at risk and social vulnerability, especially those who have links with other ABBA projects.