Every day our teams fight to rescue girls. Here, Ellen Udessane, coordinator of our Pink House in Catují, tells the story of one young life transformed. Catuji is cut in half by the BR-116. It is also blighted by poverty and inequality, with the fourth worst human development index in our whole state. Child sexual exploitation […]
Keyla Dutra, the coordinator of our Pink House in Cândio Sales, describes how she and her team are bringing hope to young lives traumatised by a local culture of abuse and sexual exploitation. Every day at Meninadança I am confronted as a human being. It’s not easy to survive against this tide, to go […]
In April Meninadança’s UK coordinator Charlotte Piek and supporter care coordinator Chloe Ribeiro spent a week in Brazil visiting the five Pink Houses and meeting the girls and staff for the first time. Here’s a report from both about their trip: Charlotte: Rafainha – her eyes could write a story that no young […]
Our Pink Houses exist to both change girls’ lives and also empower them to be change in their own communities. That’s exactly what happened when all five of our Pink Houses, as well as our other projects in three towns in the Brumadinho area, opened their doors to local people for the Transforma Exhibition, a […]
It is something we never could have imagined when Meninadança began its journey on the BR-116 nearly 12 years ago. Back then, the tragedy of sexual exploitation seemed impossibly vast and endemic, although we were determined to try to change it. Now, though, a partnership between Meninadança and one of Brazil’s largest haulage firms […]
Every girl has the right to a life of dignity, protected from sexual exploitation and all forms of violence. But that isn’t a right that’s guaranteed for the girls of the BR-116, where every ten miles children are sold for sex. The reality for these girls is of high risk and vulnerability. Their families suffer […]
Tiia Karvinen, from Finland, spent three months volunteering at our Pink Houses this year. Here’s her report… I didn’t know much of what to expect of my time volunteering with Meninadança, but I can say it was even better than I could have dreamed of. The number of new friendships I made in all the […]
Here at Meninadança we believe in the power of dance to transform lives that have been broken by abuse, exploitation and violence. One of the phrases we use is the ‘re-signification and appropriation of the body’. Principally, sexual violence is perpetrated against a girl’s body. Therefore we need to help her give new meaning to […]
When girls step through the doors of our Pink Houses they first find refuge, safety and people who genuinely love and care for them. But it isn’t long before they begin to discover something more – inner strength, courage and self-belief. Girls soon find a sense of purpose, and a determination to fight for a […]
Confronting a local culture which sees sexual abuse and exploitation as normal and acceptable is a key part of Meninadança’s work. But as the girls in our Pink Houses have thrived, it is increasingly they who have been at the forefront of calling for change in their communities. Every month our girls perform in local […]
