With a photo of a child, Dilma highlights the rights of "little Brazilians"

blog do plateau - President Dilma Rousseff used her Twitter account this Saturday (12) to congratulate all Brazilian girls and boys on their day. According to the president, all government efforts to transform Brazil into a fairer nation focus on attention to children. She cited as examples the enactment of laws that make the free provision of basic education mandatory from the age of four and that allocate resources from oil royalties to education, in addition to the National Pact for Literacy at the Right Age, a commitment to ensure that all children are literate by the age of 8.

See below for initiatives from the federal government that cover education, health, social development, and the rights of Brazilian children.

Education – One of the government's priorities is to ensure children are literate at the right age, up to eight years old. To this end, 98 literacy teachers and 16 study advisors have been registered, committed to acting as local trainers. The concern for the youngest children is also reflected in the construction of 6,5 daycare centers agreed upon to date, of which 1.163 are already completed.

Regarding children, the More Education Program offers full-time activities in schools through the voluntary transfer of resources from the federal government. More than 49 educational units already offer this resource. The Ministry of Education also works on the training of new teachers, with an emphasis on early childhood education, literacy, the initial and final years of elementary school and high school, comprehensive education, and information and communication technologies.

Health – In this area, Brazil has managed to reduce infant mortality by 68,5% in the last 20 years. Thanks to the Family Health teams, from 2010 to 2012 alone, the decrease was 9%, allowing the country to achieve the Millennium Development Goal four years ahead of schedule. Furthermore, in the area of ​​prevention, the national immunization program offers 12 vaccines that combat 20 diseases, with coverage reaching 95% of the target population in the last ten years.

Advances in healthcare also benefit mothers and children, from prenatal care to two years of age. More than 2,3 million women have been served by the Stork Network, which, in the construction of 825 neonatal beds and the maintenance of another 4, will invest a total of R$ 9,4 billion by 2014. Support increases with a breastfeeding policy that includes the largest and most complex network of milk banks in the world (212 milk banks and 128 collection points).

Children's health care also extends to classrooms with the Health in Schools program. With 30,4 Family Health teams, the program benefits 18,7 million students throughout Brazil. The same initiative will benefit approximately 2 million children aged 0 to 6 in daycare centers, aiming to reduce cases of anemia, malnutrition, obesity, and underweight, as well as visual and hearing problems present in these age groups and detectable in the school environment.

Social Development and Human Rights – The Brazil Without Poverty program also contributed to expanding access to daycare. It provides an additional amount of up to R$ 1.458 per student/year for places occupied by children from the Bolsa Família program. Adding the records from 2012 and 2013, more than 4.600 municipalities began registration to serve 659,3 children in educational units. In addition, the investment of R$ 297,8 million in school meals benefited 5,7 million young people.

Regarding health, the Bolsa Família program has contributed substantially to the reduction of infant mortality. According to the Ministry of Social Development, the decrease influenced by the program reached 19,4%, with an even greater effect for families that remain on the benefit for more than four years.

In the area of ​​children's rights, a major advance will arrive starting this Monday (14). The Secretariat of Human Rights will deliver a set of equipment to one thousand guardianship councils throughout the country. The kit includes a vehicle, five computers, a printer, a water cooler and a refrigerator. The total investment in this program is R$ 54,3 million, to protect approximately 60 million children and adolescents. The SDH also offers the Disque 100, which since 2011 has received 400 reports of cases involving violations of young people's rights.