Annual Report 2025

Index

PROJECT

Prioritizing Opportunities: Rehabilitation and Inclusion in Early Childhood

Partner organization
Associação Mineira de Reabilitação (AMR)

Territory / Region
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state, Brazil

Support Period
2025 – 2026

Associação Mineira de Reabilitação (AMR) is recognized as a leading institution in Minas Gerais in providing care for children and adolescents with physical disabilities living in vulnerable socioeconomic contexts. With a multidisciplinary team working in the areas of physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, psychology, and social work, the institution goes beyond clinical treatment, promoting inclusion and community participation as ways to expand opportunities for development and autonomy.

In this context, Prioritizing Opportunities: Rehabilitation and Inclusion in Early Childhood Project, supported by Tecendo Infâncias, further advances AMR’s work by expanding early access to specialized rehabilitation services for children aged 0 to 6 and their families.

By offering neuromotor rehabilitation services delivered by a multidisciplinary team, providing therapeutic equipment, and organizing activities in cultural and artistic spaces, the project promotes children’s functional development across sensorimotor, cognitive, and social dimensions.

Early physical therapy promotes motor function, mobility, balance, physical conditioning, and greater functionality within each child’s abilities

Since its launch in March 2025, the project has made a tangible contribution to reducing AMR’s waiting list and expanding early access to rehabilitation services. Of the 82 families enrolled, 71 participated in physiotherapy orientation sessions while awaiting the start of formal treatment.

These sessions became spaces of support and listening, where caregivers received guidance on home-based care and, in many cases, made their first contact with professionals specialized in pediatric rehabilitation. Caregivers reported feelings of relief, reassurance, and trust, particularly around feeling heard and gaining access to a structure prepared to meet their children’s needs.

Despite the challenges faced by many families in understanding and accepting their children’s health conditions, the team observed high levels of engagement and participation, with families present and committed to the therapeutic process.

This support is structural in nature. Beyond funding immediate activities, the investment contributed to AMR’s long-term sustainability, strengthening institutional capacity and organizational management, and reaffirmed the Institute’s commitment to equity by prioritizing a population historically exposed to inequality and with limited access to specialized and continuous services.

Sports activities and social interaction among children are essential at AMR

“The development of initiatives focused on early childhood has proven essential to ensuring opportunities for care and inclusion from the earliest years of life, when the opportunity for functional gains is greatest due to heightened neuroplasticity. Through the implementation of the project Prioritizing Opportunities: Rehabilitation and Inclusion in Early Childhood, AMR was able to significantly expand its reach, enabling access for 52 additional children and strengthening services for children in this age group who were already receiving care with us. With the expansion of services, we were able to provide specialized support to more children and their families, promoting not only early access to health and rehabilitation services but also the foundation for a more inclusive future. This progress, made possible by the project, reaffirms our commitment to ensuring that every child receives the care needed to reach their full potential.”
Suellen MultariRehabilitation Coordinator, AMR
AMR promotes inclusion by organizing family outings, museum visits, exhibitions, theater performances, and sporting events, encouraging leisure and cultural experiences

Observed Results in 2025

  • Recruitment of three new physiotherapists to join the interdisciplinary team responsible for implementing the project’s activities.
  • Reduction of the waiting list and expanded early access to childhood rehabilitation services.
  • Inclusion of 52 new children aged 0 to 6 in specialized physiotherapy services, representing more than 50% of all children assessed.
  • Delivery of 580 physiotherapy sessions for children aged 0 to 6, highlighting the project’s strategic focus on early childhood and the importance of the window of opportunity for child development.
  • Acquisition and delivery of 34 adapted therapeutic devices, including wheelchairs, activity tables, and stabilizers, essential to promoting greater mobility, accessibility, comfort, and safety for children, both in therapeutic settings and in their family and community routines
  • Implementation of 6 community inclusion initiatives, strengthening family and social bonds.
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