Over the weekend of April 2025 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, top officials from the Brazilian nongovernmental organization Amigos do Bem, or Friends of Good, visited Salt Lake City with the Church’s Brazil Area manager of Welfare and Self-Reliance, Paulo de Araújo.
The organization’s leaders attended general conference in the Conference Center and visited Welfare Square, the Bishops’ Central Storehouse and the Humanitarian Center in Salt Lake City. This allowed them to get a broader and better idea of the Church’s welfare and humanitarian efforts.
Amigos do Bem is one of the largest charitable organizations in Brazil. Its efforts include helping people in rural areas through education, health, housing and income generation. The Church has supported Amigos do Bem since 2021 with projects such as improving sanitation and providing food and drinking water to thousands of people.
Below are more recent efforts from the Church in the Brazil Area to help those in need, as reported on autossuficiencia.org.
Cancer donations for children and teens
In February, a report outlined how the Church donated new equipment to the TUCCA Molecular Pathology Laboratory and Hospital Santa Marcelina in São Paulo. In English, the Portuguese acronym TUCCA stands for Children and Adolescent Cancer Association.
The sequencing equipment will enable more detailed analysis of biological samples, thus allowing more accurate diagnoses, better risk stratification of patients and personalized treatments.
Cancer is the second-leading cause of death among children and adolescents in Brazil, explained the report, and many patients are not able to receive advanced genetic tests and personalized treatments due to the lack of resources and adequate infrastructure.
The Church also donated a truck to Abrace, which is an organization that hosts children undergoing cancer treatment at the Support Home in Brasília.
A letter of thanks from Abrace said, “This vehicle will be of enormous importance in strengthening our mission of providing assistance and support to families of children and adolescents undergoing treatment for cancer and hematological diseases.”
Fighting mosquito-borne illnesses
Aedes Aegypti is a type of mosquito that transmits diseases such as dengue, Zika virus and chikungunya. The Church recently donated 10 vehicles equipped with UBV nebulizers — popularly known as “foggers” — to the health department in São Luis, Maranhão State.
The expansion of the fleet will allow full coverage of the area and more complete preventative measures to help reduce the mosquito-borne illnesses in the population.
Improving eye care
The Church donated three mobile eye health units to the Renovatio Support Association, an organization that has been providing access to eye health care for people in need.
The donation will allow Renovatio to expand its services for children and adults in the states of São Paulo, Paraná and Bahia through eye care consultations and new glasses.
When children have vision problems, it can affect their school performance and increase dropout rates. This donation is expected to lead to 150,000 eye exams and benefit approximately 15,000 children who need vision correction.
New hospital equipment
In January, a ceremony marked the handover of equipment from the Church to the Santo André Municipal Hospital Center. The donation included a dermatometer for treating burns, pneumatic boots for preventing thrombosis, video laryngoscopes for complex intubation and a cryostat for intraoperative cancer diagnostics, as well as surgical materials and 14 air conditioning units to improve the well-being of patients and professionals.
This donation is expected to benefit more than 7,000 people in the first year.
Hospital officials, city leaders and Church representatives attended the event.
