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nonprofit organization Lua Nova is to help vulnerable women learn a trade and build a new life

When the day begins at the brick factory, Sandra Ferreira de Souza through the mixture of sand and used his weight to push the lever down in the light of heavy machinery. If it is too loose, quickly takes an iron pipe to prevent the fall. This is one of many adaptive maneuvers that little 27 year old, developed to suit a company designed for men.

However, the mixture of sand and heavy lever are nothing compared to the resistance to male construction workers in commercial buildings, where walls and floors stands together.

thinner and shorter than average, Sandra has a delicate face and long curly hair styles braided strips of purple hair. At work, she pulls the hair and keeps it covered with sand so that it does not become "stiff as dreadlocks." Each time a construction worker teases her long nails, Sandra Strikes Back: "These hands work the same as yours, dear times better .." And then he adds: "Men, what is right anyway ? " This is one of his favorite phrases from finished building his own house, where she lives with her three children.

Sandra is one of 20 women who have learned the basics of construction, with Lua Nova, a nonprofit organization that helps pregnant women facing high risk situations such as substance abuse homeless and domestic violence.

up begging at traffic lights in São Paulo. Richest and most populous city in Brazil His mother left the family of his sister died four years for intestinal worms. Sandra moved to her aunt's house, where he was again forced to borrow money and where he suffered beatings if she came home with empty hands.

The first time Sandra became pregnant 19 years, she received no help in caring for their children. In fact, the family of his aunt, made several violent attempts to sabotage their pregnancies. Only when he worked as an employer of a domestic worker, Sandra has her constant pain and bruising. She called a friend who worked in Lua Nova and Sandra told him the story. When he went to the association, his cousins ??started, threw boiling water on her stomach and forced her to eat Cytotec, a drug used illegally to induce abortion in Brazil.

Raquel Barros, the founder of Lua Nova psychologist, was able to convince the business school to give women a chance. For the first few weeks, all teachers were joking and flirting with women. Not only do women get together, because the resistance has led to a market dominated by men, but face the stigma of being single mothers learning to be a traditionally male jobs, in a Latin American city with a strong influence Catholic. "In his mind, will always be marginalized," sighs Sandra.

Unexpectedly, the association persisted in the classes, and 20 female participants learned a variety of construction techniques such as plumbing, painting, wiring and tiling. Meanwhile, Rachel has built a brick factory in the incubator of the association. The women began to make bricks for the future house and sell the surplus to buy other materials. Once I had enough bricks, 16 women came together to build 20 houses.

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