Brazil's 'Mother Theresa' Killed in Quake
Guyanese Jesuit Medino Abraham SJ pays tribute to Zilda Arns Neumann, a woman described as Brazil's Mother Theresa. Medino met Dr Arns last year while he was engaged in pastoral works with children in South Brazil; she was killed in the Haiti earthquake three weeks ago.
A pioneer in children's health care, Zilda Arns Neumann created a sprawling network of volunteers who monitor the health of millions of children in Brazil and 20 other nations. She died in the Haiti earthquake while on a mission to support local volunteers for the organization she founded, Pastoral da Criança, or the Child's Pastoral. She was 75.
Dona Zilda, as she became known throughout Brazil, founded Pastoral da Criança in 1983 in southern Brazil at the behest of her brother, Paulo Evaristo Arns, who at the time was Cardinal of São Paolo. The organization has grown to include 260,000 volunteers, who teach mothers the importance of breastfeeding, monitor vaccinations, and distribute a recipe for home-made oral rehydration salts that Dr Arns devised. At a festive 'Day of Celebration,' held every month, children from the community come together to be weighed.
The programme costs about $1 per month per child and has cut child mortality in half in the communities in which it operates, Pastoral da Criança says. The Brazilian government twice nominated Dr Arns for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Originally a joint venture between the Roman Catholic Church and the United Nations Children's Fund, Pastoral da Criança grew from a small program in rural southern Brazil to encompass more than two-thirds of the municipalities in the country. Today it is largely supported by the Brazilian government but run through the Catholic Church.
Dr Arns was a devout Catholic who kept a photograph of herself and Pope John Paul II on her office wall. She often said the model for her work was the New Testament story in which Jesus fed a multitude with only a few loaves and fishes. The parable, she said, inspired her to work with a decentralized organization and volunteers.
One of 13 children of German immigrants in rural southern Brazil, Dr Arns's mother served as an informal rural medic in Forquilhinha, the small town where the family lived. Dr Arns attended medical school, and beginning in 1959 worked as a paediatrician in Curitiba, Brazil. Her sensitivity to society's most vulnerable members was heightened by the tragedies in her own life. She lost two of her children, and her husband was killed trying to rescue another child from drowning.
In a speech to the Port-au-Prince gathering of Pastoral da Criança volunteers shortly before her death, Dr Arns recalled the moment that her brother, the Cardinal, asked her to start a children's health outreach. 'I felt happy with the challenge,' she said. 'I felt that God, in a certain way, had prepared me for this mission.'
'Like the birds that take care of their children by building a nest high up in the trees and the mountains, far from predators' threats and dangers and nearer God, we should watch over our children as something sacred, promote and respect their rights and protect them.' In a statement, her brother said that Dr Arns 'died in the cause she has always believed'.
This is an edited version of an article that was first published in Guyana's Catholic Standard.
A pioneer in children's health care, Zilda Arns Neumann created a sprawling network of volunteers who monitor the health of millions of children in Brazil and 20 other nations. She died in the Haiti earthquake while on a mission to support local volunteers for the organization she founded, Pastoral da Criança, or the Child's Pastoral. She was 75.
Dona Zilda, as she became known throughout Brazil, founded Pastoral da Criança in 1983 in southern Brazil at the behest of her brother, Paulo Evaristo Arns, who at the time was Cardinal of São Paolo. The organization has grown to include 260,000 volunteers, who teach mothers the importance of breastfeeding, monitor vaccinations, and distribute a recipe for home-made oral rehydration salts that Dr Arns devised. At a festive 'Day of Celebration,' held every month, children from the community come together to be weighed.
The programme costs about $1 per month per child and has cut child mortality in half in the communities in which it operates, Pastoral da Criança says. The Brazilian government twice nominated Dr Arns for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Originally a joint venture between the Roman Catholic Church and the United Nations Children's Fund, Pastoral da Criança grew from a small program in rural southern Brazil to encompass more than two-thirds of the municipalities in the country. Today it is largely supported by the Brazilian government but run through the Catholic Church.
Dr Arns was a devout Catholic who kept a photograph of herself and Pope John Paul II on her office wall. She often said the model for her work was the New Testament story in which Jesus fed a multitude with only a few loaves and fishes. The parable, she said, inspired her to work with a decentralized organization and volunteers.
One of 13 children of German immigrants in rural southern Brazil, Dr Arns's mother served as an informal rural medic in Forquilhinha, the small town where the family lived. Dr Arns attended medical school, and beginning in 1959 worked as a paediatrician in Curitiba, Brazil. Her sensitivity to society's most vulnerable members was heightened by the tragedies in her own life. She lost two of her children, and her husband was killed trying to rescue another child from drowning.
In a speech to the Port-au-Prince gathering of Pastoral da Criança volunteers shortly before her death, Dr Arns recalled the moment that her brother, the Cardinal, asked her to start a children's health outreach. 'I felt happy with the challenge,' she said. 'I felt that God, in a certain way, had prepared me for this mission.'
'Like the birds that take care of their children by building a nest high up in the trees and the mountains, far from predators' threats and dangers and nearer God, we should watch over our children as something sacred, promote and respect their rights and protect them.' In a statement, her brother said that Dr Arns 'died in the cause she has always believed'.
This is an edited version of an article that was first published in Guyana's Catholic Standard.
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