Edson

My life at the “Saint Michael the Archangel” Community was based on intensive learning for my personal and professional growth. At first, I didn’t like being away from my family, but it didn’t take long for me to get used to it.

I lived with my grandmother and six siblings, boys and girls, in a simple and humble house. My grandmother did her best to give us everything she could. When I arrived at the “Saint Michael the Archangel”, I was about 7 years old without knowing anyone. The first person who came to me was Mr. Marco Roberto, a boy with long hair (I thought he was Jesus).

We had coffee with him and other boys who were already there, and then we went to visit that big school and house. Over the next few days, I had the pleasure of meeting some of the people who worked there. They were the educators, who accompanied us throughout the process. Some time later I met three “angels” who marked my life, my story at the “Saint Michael the Archangel”. The educator Edriana is the person who taught me to read, Marlon in my time was a student just like me and who became my older brother, and for the little Italian I speak I have to thank him and Michela the educator who has always been present as a mother of the heart for me. Even today I keep in touch with all of them.

Some time later I had the opportunity to take some professional courses within the Community (baker, kitchen helper and dental assistant) that helped me a lot to understand how my life would be as an “adult” (since I was very young) giving me an idea of ​​what and who I would find. Then, when I was older, I started to participate in the violin orchestra that is now the famous and well-known “Orchestra dei piccoli di San Michele” with the director Luiz Otavio that I could never forget to mention. I was able to play in many recitals and concerts inside and outside the School, it was during this period that my taste for music and the violin grew in me. At the age of eighteen I could no longer stay at San Michele because, in some way already ready for adult life, I had to leave the Community. For legal and family reasons, I moved to my hometown. This was quite difficult because I had created many ties at the “Saint Michael the Archangel”. Then my grandmother passed away and so I had to go live with a foster family of friends of my grandfather, friendly, honest, welcoming people, Norma and Fernando who already had two older children. Today I have no words to describe the good that I want for them. I have a lot to thank them for.

Now I am twenty-two years old and I am a cycling and mountain biking athlete. In my professional life I worked as a truck driver for two years, today I am a shipping assistant in a cement factory (Cimento Tupi). I started attending college at a distance to study logistics technologist (thanks to my brother Rodrigo and his wife Karina who are helping me with this study investment). I have been working in this position for three years and I thank some people that I am happy and proud to name: Bruna, Jheny, Leone, Daniel, Olair, Walesson, Carol and Willian, people who have given me the strength to be who I am today and do what I do. Everything that I have become I owe to so many good people that I have met but first and foremost I owe it to SAO MIGUEL ARCANJO (“Saint Michael the Archangel”).