ESC: What do EU Speak?-Long term Project at 'Voar Mais Alto' Kindergarten

The Shalom Baptist Association is a Private Institution of Social Solidarity, with the number of Collective Person of Public Utility n.º 504643355, with statutes approved and published in the "Diário da República" III series n.º 88 of 13 April 2000, recognized by the General Direction of Solidarity and Social Security, according to register 121/2000 on page 105 of Book n.º 8 of the Associations of Social Solidarity on 20 July 2000. This Association has as objectives the accomplishment of social projects in the areas of Childhood, Youth, Elderly Population and support to families in need.

In recent years we have developed programmes which target the most deprived families in Setúbal, tackling the problems of food distribution, provision of clothing, toys, and other essential goods as well as integration and Youth empowerment activities. We we cooperate with the Food Bank and with the Portuguese Social Security, providing support for up to 1800 individuals. We also provide 140 free meals a day to unemployed individuals without financial support and to families in need, prepared in our Social Canteen, under a protocol with the Portuguese Social Security. In 2012 we inagurated the building "Voar mais alto" (Fly higher). In this building it operates, in addition to other social responses, the Nursery with capacity for 81 children and the Pre-School with capacity for 100 children as well as the Home Support Service (Serviço de Apoio Domiciliar), the Laundry and the Kitchen. The educational and support team consists of highly qualified professionals who are committed to ensuring that the individual needs of the children are met so that each of them is an integral part of the entire educational process. The day care center has six classrooms. In what concerns pre-school children, they will be distributed by four rooms according to their age group. In addition to all these rooms, there will be hygiene and feeding support areas properly equipped according to the specific needs of each age, as well as two playgrounds and a multipurpose space where curricular enrichment activities will be developed, namely music and psychomotor activities.

In total, we are developing activities with about 2000 people living with the most basic needs, without any other support. At this moment ABShalom is facing a new challenge, having established a protocol to monitor the beneficiaries of the Social Integration Income (Rendimento Social de Inserçao), it is facing a range of social issues that require an increasingly close and direct monitoring with individuals and families. Thus ABShalom's action is increasingly on the ground, which leads us to verify the absence of social answers for these families, as well as the absence of answers at the level of employment and housing.