Minas Gerais excluded from the first stage of the "Brasil Carinhoso" program.

Mines 247 – Approximately one million children in Minas Gerais, mostly living in the North of Minas Gerais and the Jequitinhonha Valley, live in extreme poverty. Despite this worrying number, these children will not receive resources from the "Brasil Carinhoso" project. The first phase of the program will only benefit the North and Northeast regions of the country.

Check out the article by the journalist. Ernesto Braga, from the newspaper Nowadays

"President Dilma, we also need affection." This is the appeal made by nearly one million children in Minas Gerais, up to 6 years old, born into low-income or no-income families and who have never attended daycare.

Many are raised by illiterate parents in homes lacking basic sanitation. Social indicators show that the majority of these boys and girls live below the poverty line. Even so, they are not treated as a priority by the "Brasil Carinhoso" program, announced last month by the federal government.

Through the transfer of funds, a minimum income of R$ 70 per capita will be guaranteed to extremely poor families with at least one child up to 6 years old. The construction of 1.514 daycare centers throughout the country is also planned, along with actions in the health sector.

Data from the 2010 Census, conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), shows that, proportionally, Minas Gerais has fewer inhabitants in this age group attending daycare centers than Piauí and Maranhão. The same occurs when compared to Bahia, the state with the largest number of families served by the federal program.

In her speech at the launch of the "Caring Brazil" program on May 14th, President Dilma Rousseff made it clear that the focus will be on the Northeast and North regions of the country. The justification is that these regions concentrate the states with the highest number of people living below the poverty line, meaning with an income of less than R$70 per person per month.

In this regard, according to IBGE, Maranhão is at the top of the list, with 25,7% of the population, followed by Piauí (21,3%), Alagoas (20,3%), Pará (18,9%) and Amazonas (18,6%). In Minas Gerais, the rate is 4,6%.

However, the 2010 Census shows that more than 5 million people in Minas Gerais have no income. In Bahia, there are 4,8 million inhabitants; 2,5 million in Pará; 2,2 million in Maranhão; 1,2 million in Amazonas; and 1 million in Piauí.