Olinda church on a rubbish dump

Children at the Olinda Mission in Brazil

'My Father's House' is a project linked to the Anglican Church of Living Waters.

Ian Meldrum from Lincoln and his wife Simea are Anglican vicars.

They work closely with people who live in a shanty town at the Church called Living Waters next to the rubbish dump in Olinda in Brazil.

The aim of the church is to reach out to boys, helping them get back into education and reunited with their families so they can have better lives.

In Brazil, 25 million children live in extremely deprived conditions, 8 million of these live on the streets, forming gangs to survive and many are killed before they reach the age of 18. Families are often very poor so can't always support their children and so many young people are left to fend for themselves.

Ian and Simea have a safe house where they give shelter to boys off the streets and help them to give up drugs and glue sniffing.

Life changing

Ian went out to Brazil as an agricultural hand originally, and he felt the call to become an Anglican vicar, so he came back to the UK to train before going back to Brazil, where he's been ever since.

OLINDA FACTS The Living Waters Church is in the shanty town next to the dump Services are held on Sundays The church is used for caring for children and families with a whole range of activities all week

The Living Waters Church is situated on a favela (shanty town) at the side of the city's open air rubbish dump, there is a school at the church and a co-operative has been established to help people make some money from selling cardboard and plastic which has been collected from the dump.

Forty miles away in the countryside Ian and Simea have a farm which the couple are hoping to renovate, so it can be used as a place to rehabilitate children with behavioural problems.

Nettleham links

The various projects in Olinda require a large amount of fund raising activity. Beth Stevenson from Nettleham Methodist Church visited the area a few years ago, and along with other members of the congregation she has been working hard to raise funds ever since.

"It's a very complex thing to go and do, because although it's a very dangerous place, when I went out with Simea, you feel very safe with her because she is so respected in the shanty town because she does so much in the way of helping people.

"It was quite a life changing experience and it was a shock to go and look at. The people who go to the church love being there, they like the music and the dance and their faces are shining. They all get dressed up in clean clothes to go; it's just an amazing place."

There is still a lot of work to be done in Olinda. The renovation of the farm, provision of meals, raising funds to employ a social worker and running a crèche, all of this in addition to the costs already needed to run the various projects in Olinda.