Dara Institute (former Saúde Criança Renascer) is a civil society organization that works to promote health and human development through the implementation and dissemination of an integrated approach to combat poverty. It was founded by doctor Vera Cordeiro, in 1991, with a group of professionals from Lagoa Hospital, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The institute does leading intersectoral work with social determinants of health that, according to WHO (World Health Organization), are the socioeconomic factors related to a person's living conditions. The institute's work contributes to the 2030 Agenda defined by the UN (United Nations) for sustainable development.
As poverty is multidimensional, the institute believes that the social transformation of vulnerable families is only possible when different areas of human development are addressed simultaneously and in an integrated manner. For this reason, it developed the social technology Family Action Plan (FAP). FAP is designed according to the needs of each family. It consists of the participatory creation of goals and actions in the areas of health, education, citizenship, housing and income so that each family is the protagonist of its own development, has access to its rights, and improves its quality of life and conditions of health.
To implement its mission, the institute works with the direct care of vulnerable families, while dissemenating knowledge about human development.
Overwhelmed public hospitals can treat disease but rarely address the conditions that made a child sick in the first place, fueling a cycle of reinfection.
Saude Crianca engages healthcare providers and families in a Family Care Plan.
Vera Cordeiro (left) realized that attention to nutrition, employment, sanitation, and other factors reduces re-infection and hospitalization by up to 85 percent.
More than 50,000 people have been helped to date.
Dara Institute aims to shifti the human development framework into society by incorporating an integrated multi-sectoral approach to development and poverty alleviation by:
— Working directly with vulnerable families.
— Influencing a major shift in public policy.
— Disseminating knowledge about the multidimensional approach to poverty alleviation.
— Consultancy to the Citizenship Ministry in order to influence federal public policy for vulnerable families.
— Partnership with universities including University of Maryland, Catholic University (USA), and Brazil) to implement our methodology.
— Working as a social inclusion knowledge hub with multiple stakeholders.
Founder & Chairwoman of the Board, Instituto Dara
Vera Regina Gaensly Cordeiro is the founder and leader of Brazilian social organization: the Saúde Criança Association (ASC).
As a young doctor in a highly unequal city, Rio de Janeiro, Vera witnessed a cycle of health problems among sick children from poor families. Health improvements made by children while treated at the hospital were often undone upon returning home, resulting in a worsening of their condition and readmission at the hospital. She observed the hard reality of repeated hospital stays and wanted to understand the reasons behind it. She put herself face-to-face with that which seems invisible. And she found that the root cause of disease was and still is: poverty. In the area of pediatrics, poverty showed its ugliest side and an even more perverse dimension: the endless suffering of those small human beings and their families.
Vera realized that to save children needing medical treatment she had to help their entire family in a non-clinical way. In-hospital treatment wasn’t addressing issues of poor living conditions, safety, nutrition and access to rights that have significant effects on health. In 1991, she founded ASC that pioneered the Family Action Plan. The Plan – which consists of integrated actions in the areas of Health, Education, Citizenship, Housing, and Income Generation – is built based on each family’s needs. Besides overcoming the immediate difficulties inherent to the child's post-hospitalization phase, the methodology goal is to offer orientation and opportunities so that the family goes through a process of social transformation, having its rights guaranteed and can enjoy quality of life.
Vera has mobilized volunteers, employees, national and international organizations to embark on a long, challenging journey in her quest for social justice, human rights, and the reduction of social inequality. She has worked to expand the methodology in Brazil and abroad and has inspired social entrepreneurs to take the methodology to other countries. She led its implementation as a public policy in one of the biggest cities of Brazil to the benefit of thousands. Her dream is that health is understood and treated as multi-dimensional, including its bio-psycho-social and economic factors so that the most vulnerable can leave life with dignity.
Today, Vera serves as the President of the Board of Directors. The day-to-day leadership of the organization is currently shared between co-COOs Cristiana Velloso and Adriane Menna Barreto as the organization searches for a new CEO.
