Niteroi, a city about an hour from Rio, is home to the Pestalozzi Foundation of Niteroi (SPERJ). Founded in 1948 on a small farm, today the organization primarily focused on intellectual disability continues it agricultural program for adults, operates a school for children, and provides the discrete therapeutic treatments 1-2 times a week as we've seen in other locales.
Three delegates made presentations that were very well received, and we discussed the Brazilian approach to Autism. Autism is conceptualized as a mental health condition, rather than a developmental disorder, and it's treatment falls under the health system. The prevailing treatment of Autism in Brazil is psychoanalysis. The new leader of SPERJ has embraced ABA as a preferred intervention, but faces resistance among his mental health colleagues.
In transit to our next appointment, we are pulled our by a Federale, who impounds the bus for some sort of improper tags. Thanks to the fantastic local guide, we are on our way again in a new bus a little over an hour later.
Arriving in the shantytown (or Favila) of Vagario Geral, we visit Afro Reggae, a nonprofit that seems to my eye to operate in the vein of the "settlement house" movement in US. Afro Reggae is a highly contemporary operation, that has drawn international corporate sponsors and boasts a recording studio, film production facilities, and computer labs. We are lucky enough to see live performances of a drum corps using reclaimed materials, the afro pop band AF12, and the rock band Poverty. All performances are amazing. Afro Reggae has substantially reduced violence, drug traffic, and unemployment and increased "present" fatherhood and the average age of first time pregnancy in the area from age 13 to 21.
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