HELPING CHILDREN IN NEED IN PORTO

CATEGORIES: SOCIAL CARE - CENTRO ANTONIO CÂNDIDO

The social-Erasmus week started on Monday. The first event should take place at the Centro António Cândido somewhere in downtown. In favor of Dr. Anna I will not mention any names and try to obtain and save the children’s privacy.

First of all, the Centro António Cândido is an institutional building for Children who cannot stay with their parents by law or other circumstances. So when we arrived (around 20 students from around the world including the Erasmus-hosts) we brought some dishes from our countries to the dining hall. The kids arrived from school in the dining hall after we already had prepared two tables with food.

I prepared some fresh omelets with some fresh vegetables and bacon. Really tasty and healthy at once. Dr. Anna allowed me to use the kitchen beside Susann the chef of the Centro. She was preparing spaghetti Bolognese for around 50 children. I brought as well some leftovers of the Running Dinner event of the Day before for example original Italian pasta Carbonara and Tiramisu.

During the dinner I started to chat with a boy at the age of 13. We mainly talked about football and our experiences as football-player of course a easy way to into a conversation. One of the older ladies who are taking care of the kids promised to go to the stadium with him in Porto. Although his favorite club is Benfica. He told me about school as well and that he learns english and french at school. Our conversation switched in between English and Portuguese.

The teacher were introduced and we followed the guided tour of Dr. Anna. We entered the room for fine arts where the kids work with a lot of different materials. A girl seemed curious about my curiosity so I asked her on what she is apparently working. When I didn’t got an answer I realized that she couldn’t understand me at all. I took a paper with some notes on it and started to write. She got some support by a friend of her class. The tour should continue a last time to the dining hall where the kids now should have their proper dinner. So the girl grabbed my arm in order to join us still without speaking a word but full of happiness. She took the piece of paper, ripped out the things we wrote and folded it a plenty of times to put it in her pocket.