In 2011, ESTHERS began a 6-month pilot program before launching the Quiet Strength Community Center in 2012 in the small favela called Vera Cruz.  Located approximately 20 kilometers from the World Cup stadium in Recife, Brazil, Vera Cruz is a very poor community with an extremely high unemployment and illiteracy rate.  In 2012, in an effort to change the face of the community in preparation for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the city built government apartments that currently house 500 families.  The average family income amongst these families is less than $300 per month.  Since building this housing, the crime rate, drug trafficking and prostitution has continued to increase in the community.

The Quiet Strength Community Center is a prevention program that fights the causes of sexual exploitation and child prostitution with girls between the ages of four and eighteen.  ESTHERS uses a holistic approach to restore lives physically, spiritually, academically, emotionally, socially and psychologically.  This program provides each girl with balanced nutrition, spiritual development, academic tutoring, training in the arts, healthcare – when needed, and group counseling.

Each Friday the ESTHERS Brazil Team at the Quiet Strength Community Center do family visits with the children in their program.  Family visits gives ESTHERS the opportunity to be involved in what is happening at the home, a space to share God’s word with the family and pray for specific individual needs, and develop a relationship based on trust where they can develop healthy family and parental habits within the household.