Spensy Pimentel
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Dourados (MS) - Workers from the Catholic Church's Children's Pastoral Commission will reinforce the efforts of the National Health Foundation (Funasa) to combat malnutrition in the Dourados indigenous territory, the most heavily populated Guarani-Kaiowá reservation in southern Mato Grosso do Sul (MS), 220 kilometers southwest of Campo Grande. "We invited the Pastoral. We are interested in their experience with the multi-food mixture and the training of community agents," explains the Funasa coordinator in MS, Gaspar Hickman.

He reports that in 2001-2002 the Children's Pastoral already helped in the production of the multi-food mixture with a machine donated to the Dourados Indian community by a local firm, but, subsequently, the activity that will now be resumed was interrupted due to technical flaws. The multi-food mixture is a natural blend that provides children large doses of vitamins and minerals to help combat malnutrition.

Pastoral instructors began this past weekend training agents to work in the Indian area. "Apart from the language barrier, I believe that the work will be very similar to what we already do in poor urban peripheral neighborhoods, basically looking after expectant mothers and children up to six years old," affirms Maria Madalena Simão, who has been a Pastoral agent for fifteen years and is helping administer the training in Dourados. She says that the Pastoral has already been operating for several years in Indian villages in other regions, such as Caarapó and Amambai.

Simão mentions the chief areas in which Pastoral agents generally help families. "Most common is the lack of hygiene, so, exercising a great deal of tact and after getting very close to the family, the agent advises, for example, always to change the child's clothes, be be careful when washing clothes, not to use too much sugar in food, and not to waste food." She says that agents sometimes provide a "bridge" between the family and government social welfare agencies. "It's rare, but there are people who are ashamed to ask," she explains.

Translation: David Silberstein