Help Shelter Animals on Sasha's Birthday

We are getting close to Sasha's first anniversary as part of the Robazzi-Hennager clan.

For Curtis and I this brings a lot of memories, from the day we brought her home to the adaptation phase, and all the learning, understanding and accepting we all had to do until we found our balance of a loving and respecting home.
This September we will be celebrating Sasha twice: her first anniversary with us and her 5th birthday.

For that we would like to give a gift to Sasha's shelter friends, the dogs and cats who are still in need for a loving home.

So if you know Sasha and would like to give her something on her birthday, please make a donation in her name to the shelter where she came from using the link http://www.gofundme.com/help-shelter-animals-nyc

And for those of you who don't know Sasha yet, here is a brief story of her life:

Sasha on Adoption Day

Sasha is a pitbull mix we adopted from the Humane Society of New York when she had just turned 4 years old. While she didn't live the worst life a dog could ask for, like suffering physical abuse for example, she did live for a long time at the shelter. In the first three years of her life she was adopted and returned four times. When she first came to our home, it took her several months to understand that this was for real, and that this time she is here to stay. In many ways I think she is still not so sure, even after one year. But time did help her a lot, as she became closer and more loving to us than ever. We love this dog, to us she is our four legged fury daughter.

If you too love and care for animals, please use this opportunity to show your love by making a donation on http://www.gofundme.com/help-shelter-animals-nyc

Our Wedding Day

THANK YOU ALL FOR WISHING SASHA A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Cidadão Pró-Mundo (Pro-World Citizen)

From all the people that I have kept in touch with through adult life from back in school days, my friend Sarinha is the one that has by far the best job of them all. At least in my opinion. 

She is the administrative director of a NGO in São Paulo, called Cidão Pró Mundo (Pro-World Citizen). 

For them it all started in 1997, when the founder brought a foreign friend to visit a low-income community in the south west of the city. To his surprise, all the youngsters in the community got really exited to meet a foreigner and kept trying to communicate with him. 

That’s when the idea to use English as a tool to promote equality emerged. Classes started to be given at the students residences up to 1999 when they got their own space. Today they have a partnership with Cambridge University Press and are using one of the most well established learning materials in the world.

But to say that English is all they teach would be really diminishing the great work being done. The kids who attend these classes don’t really have access to good schooling in general, and the volunteers have been striving to teach basics from other subjects while using English language in the classroom. 

In the first part of the course, students learn how to talk about Brazil in English, to boost their self-esteem. Afterwards they are exposed to projects focused on work experience to feel confident about getting into the labor market.

Today they serve 8 communities, have 300 volunteers and over 700 students. 

And as if all this wasn’t exiting enough, People of Change, a NGO that makes documentaries about organizations that strive for the betterment of their community through sustainable changes not just to honor them but also to encourage others to start similar work, just release a teaser on the documentary they did on Cidadão Pro-Mundo. 

Watch with English Subtitles: 

Want to help? Pró-Mundo is now raising funds to buy text books and other school supplies. With a small donation of R$60 (about USD $30) you can buy all the supplies a student will need for a whole year. To donate please e-mail faleconosco@cidadaopromundo.org.br

Liking Cidão Pró-Mundo Facebook Page also helps!

Congrats Sarinha, for all the hard work! You are for me a source of inspiration.