Stories of Love

Taking Just One More Step

Imagine a model educational institution: A happy colorful kindergarten, little children singing and learning through play. A grade school and high school where students excel, with excellent teachers, materials and technology resources. A technical school that teaches professional courses to youth and adults, giving them the basis for sustainable lifetime careers. A large library that serves both the students and the local citizenry. And a College of Education that prepares new teachers not only to teach academics, but to stimulate their future students towards service that can help transform society.

Now, imagine this model institution from pre-school through university situated in the poorest neighborhood of Manaus, the major city in the Brazilian Amazon. As far as the eye can see, there are hundreds of wood shacks and shanties. People from the interior of the Amazon who come to try for a better life in the city erect these humble dwellings with whatever materials they can barter for or find. The city dwellers call it, “invasao” — an invasion. Just 20 years ago, none of it was here. The model institution is a project of the Association for the Cohesive Development of the Amazon (ADCAM). It sits like a green jewel with dignified buildings, wide lawns and flower-bordered walkways amidst the ramshackle dwellings and dusty streets of the surrounding neighborhood. Indeed, the local people call it a “garden of paradise.”

You might think an institution like this was the work of the government or some major private enterprise. In fact, it was begun by a lone woman, a school teacher, without an advanced degree, money, contacts or any standing in the community. Her name is Ferial.

In 1985, Ferial came to Manaus, a city the Brazilians called, “fim do mundo” — the end of the world. In those days, it was disorderly, dirty, and covered with graffiti. Lepers begged for coins at stoplights and vultures constantly circled overhead attracted by the piles of garbage on street corners. Ferial didn't notice much of that. What she did see were the street children — bands of kids as young as 3 years old huddled together in the corners of buildings to shield their small bodies against the heat and tropical downpours, with no one to care for them or feed them and no social net to catch them. And then she did something extraordinary. She picked up 7 of the children and took them home. She got the government to promise $10 per month for each child she took in, so she took in more children. But the promised money never came.

With 20 or 30 kids to care for, every morning while her husband and her own two boys watched the children, Ferial walked the neighborhood from one store to the next to plead for milk, food, diapers and blankets. Of 300 children she took in over three years, she saw to it that 299 were adopted into good families. One child with severe mental difficulties could not be adopted.

Then Ferial decided these abandoned and orphaned children she was caring for needed education. She determined to start a pre-school for them and open it to all the children of the neighborhood. When she was registering the pre-schoolers, their older brothers and sisters came to beg for a class for themselves. How could Ferial turn them away? They were only 11 years old, standing there with tears in their eyes, asking to be educated. Ferial set her sights on a fully functioning elementary school.

She charged a small fee to cover the cost of materials, but there were so many children in the neighborhood who couldn't afford even a few dollars a month. So, Ferial offered after-hours classes for these street kids. Dozens came every day to this refuge from the rough streets, for a hot meal and the best education in the area. Eventually, the government paid the families $17 a month so they would send their kids to ADCAM rather than to the streets to beg.

One class was added each year until the school, recognized for its compassion and quality education, had kindergarten through high school with 600 students daily. But for Ferial, it was not enough. She saw the children in the school transforming their lives and the lives of their families. They would need advanced education after high school. Many of the kids, deeply affected by their own school experience, had the dream to become a teacher.

Ferial knew it was one thing to tell impoverished children that they could achieve their dreams. It was another thing entirely for them to see kids from their own background actually do it. And one school couldn't meet all the needs of the region. There had to be a way to spread the important lessons they were learning about how to break the cycle of poverty. Ferial decided to start a teachers' college. Now, Tahirih College of Education graduates about 100 teachers a year. Among those graduates are some of the same little 11-year olds who came to Ferial ten years before to ask for classes for themselves. They are the next generation of teachers who have become empowered change agents in the development of their own communities.

Yet this was still not enough for Ferial. She applied for and successfully won a million dollar grant from the Federal Government of Brazil to start a technical college that, at full capacity, will graduate 4,000 students a year. She also worked diligently over two decades to spread rural education programs to river villages far from Manaus.

And she never lost sight of the most vulnerable and needy in her community. Many elderly people, alone, illiterate and poor, never knew that the government would give them basic social security income if only they applied for it. And there were other health concerns and social problems in the poor neighborhoods springing up around the school as more and more villagers migrated to the city.

The street kids, now numbering over 300, who came to ADCAM's after school program from those neighborhoods, suggested a community health fair. So Ferial brought government social service agents, army medical personnel, volunteer dentists, psychologists and social workers to the school campus to provide free on-site services on a Saturday. The first year, 1,000 local people came to the health fair. The second year, 4,000 came. The elderly signed up for their identity cards to get subsistence income. Others received vaccinations, dental check-ups, haircuts, skin exams, lectures on preventing AIDS and other diseases, family counseling and many other services. The health fair is now an annual event.

Just last year, Ferial was honored by the Brazilian Parliament with their nation's equivalent of the Medal of Honor, in recognition of her services to the people of the Amazon and to the nation as a whole. But she would tell you, she didn't do all this. She would say there were many who contributed, offered services, donated time and money, and dedicated the hours of their lives to raise up this institution that now flourishes and provides such hope to the people it serves.

Yes, Ferial would tell you that this model institution that is changing thousands of lives is the result of many who, like her, were willing to take just one more step.

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