Vera Cordeiro founded the Saúde Criança Renascer Association in 1991 at the Public Hospital of Lagoa in Rio de Janeiro, with the aim of providing emergency assistance to ill children from low-income families during and immediately after hospitalization. Hundreds of children enter Brazil's public hospitals each month, many of whom live in extreme poverty. Factors linked to economic, domestic, psychological and social conditions create unbearable burdens for these children and their families. Naturally, these adverse conditions inhibit a child's recuperation and guarantee repeated hospital visits.
Renascer seeks to break this vicious cycle by providing families with the minimum material and psychological support necessary to foster home recovery or at least to minimise patient suffering.
Since its inception, Renascer has been duplicated in seven public hospitals in Rio de Janeiro and in two other cities, serving some of the country's poorest families and addressing public health sector inadequacies at the same time. The project provides a model which founders hope to reproduce in every public hospital in Brazil.
Read Changemakers Journal article about Vera Cordeira
