Centro Social Presidente Kennedy

Centro Social Presidente Kennedy (Kennedy Center) was founded in 1965 by Fr. Harold Rahm, S.J. in the city of Campinas, in the state of São Paulo, Brasil. The Center furnishes a diversity of activities: professional skills, recreation, basic educational opportunities, social and cultural attainment, and moral consciousness.

The majority of the people served by the Center are from rural backgrounds. These people have come to the city seeking employment as the need for labor in rural areas decreases. They come with dreams of better salaries, job opportunities, improved living conditions. Instead, due to their not having basic professional skills and adequate formal education demanded by the city, they find a reality far different from the one they seek: no jobs for the unskilled and semi-literate. As a result, they are forced to live in urban slums on the outskirts of the city.

The Center seeks to provide for the improvement of their lives in terms of human, material, and social development through a comprehensive social assistance program. The whole enterprise is focused on a better integration of the person into his or her social milieu. Some of the training, educational, and social opportunities offered at the Kennedy Center are:

•   Secretarial Course •   Typing Course •   Nursing Aide Course •   Industrial Sewing Course •   Knitting Course •   Industrial Pattern Making Course •   Electrician Course

•   Offset Printing Course •   IBM Composer Course •   Computer Skills Course •   Christian Leadership Course •   Recreational Activities •   Youth Groups •   Marriage Encounter Programs

Always faithful to its slogan "The hook is worth more than the fish," the Centro Social Presidente Kennedy has, with the help of God and the community, assisted about one million needy people with its programs.
 

Above:	Bro. Tony Coco, S.J. maintains the computer facilities.
Below:	Bro. Bob Hollingsworth, S.J. at the printing press.