Brava: Seventh-day Adventist Church joins forces with other institutions to raise awareness of social ills

The Adventist Church on the island of Brava has a series of activities underway, namely cycles of prayers, open conversations and lectures, in partnership with other institutions, to make society aware of social ills.

This information was advanced to Inforpress by Pastor Rafael Fernandes, explaining that the objective is always to raise awareness in society, and that at this stage they are looking into some issues related to sexual abuse of minors, depression, anxiety, among others. .

According to the same source, these are issues that nowadays are emerging more frequently within society and the Seventh-day Adventist Church has made some partnerships, namely with the delegation of the Cape Verdean Institute for Children and Adolescents (ICCA), the Resource Room on Ilha Brava and the health station, focusing on raising awareness about all the situations society is going through.

At the moment, he informed that they are working in Cova Rodela and in the Lomba Tantum area, the latter considered a little more critical in certain matters, hence the need to work more in that locality, but the objective is to reach all other areas of the island.

"The work is being done, now it is up to society to become aware of what is ahead of them", said the religious, stressing that the community also has to do its part so that everything can work and that there are positive changes.

Ana Miranda, director of the Women's Ministry of the Adventist Church of Nossa Senhora do Monte, explained that since the 4th of March, the activities of the World Day of Prayer have started in the Adventist Church.

He added that then, all the churches in the country received the mission to carry out these campaigns, under the motto “Transforming through Prayer”, where they pray for other women.

In these campaigns, he stressed that they are focusing on some diseases that are causing various problems and that are destroying people's minds, listing depression, anxiety, but also some situations of vulnerability and violation of children's rights.

Debating these issues, this official underlined that society is more aware of what is happening and in the case of children, parents and even children learn ways of how they can react, the people who can ask for support, but also the duties, rights and responsibility of each.

On behalf of the ICCA, Mileida Cabral, who participated in these first lectures and open conversations, emphasized that they have already dealt with issues such as emotional intelligence, how people can deal with stress, anxiety and how to prevent depression.

Likewise, topics such as the prevention of sexual abuse and ICCA's work on Brava have already been addressed.

According to the ICCA psychologist, they focused on the issue of abuse of vulnerable people and parental responsibility.
This person in charge showed her satisfaction with this partnership, as she justified that there was a lot of participation, not only by church members, but also people from the communities where they had already been, informing that the idea is to continue with the partnership, with the aim of going to the town of Lomba once a month and participate in other projects in other towns.