Protective Love: A Mother’s Devotion in the Face of Vulnerability
In this story I would like to ask permission to share from memory a vision of a mother who with all her strength managed to impact the future of her children. I have known Elda Pimental’s family for years. It’s easy to think of families that have benefitted from Instituto Solidare and especially her and her three children. I can recall that her children frequently attend the projects activities accompanied by their mother.
Her dedication was always admired; she was one of the mothers that we always said:“ we can always count on her”. Today we can understand that it was this dedication that guaranteed her children were prevented from making the wrong decisions in life. The family lived in the Coqueirial District, but more specifically in the community of Alto da Bela Vista, and like every peripheral area very vulnerable. The presence of criminal organisations, drug trafficking and robberies taking place in the community.
The vulnerability of the area becomes even more grave on looking from the house window there is a clear view of the Prison Complex of Curado. It’s made up of three prison units and in 2022 became of the most emblematic cases of the Brazilian prison system before the Interamerican Court of Human Rights (Court IDH) because of extreme overcrowding, poor sanitation and grave violations of human rights.
A wider view shows the area it covers. The complex is about 1.4 km from the house. This puts the family at risk, their children could become “aviaozinhos”, the act of throwing phone, drugs, and other illicit objects over the prison fences, a practice commonly undertaken by young people. Alongside this the history of uprisings in the prison in 2015, 2017 and 2022, putting everyone’s security at risk due to stray bullets hitting the walls of the houses.
It is in this situation that Elda always fought to free and protect her children and we can say that she achieved this. Her children Jean and Ryan were young people who participated in the Mentoring and Skills Project, supported by Happy Child in partnership with Instituto Solidare.
Jean was part of the 2024 cohort and currently has a contract. While Ryan was a student in 2025 and today is dedicated to his studies in a college. There is no doubt that in a short while her younger daughter too will participate in the Mentoring and Skills project.
Conceicao Evaristo, Brazilian writer, wrote once this “ All my treasure came from my mother, all my gain from her”. We could say that everything came from Elda through to Jean, Ryan and Helida. We can see through her eyes that she wasn’t content at where she had arrived, she wanted more for herself and for her children.
You too can be a part of this story and support the projects that Happy Child is involved in. You can help open doors to new stories of transformation.
Written by Eduarda Teixeira
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