Support for my brother and nephew.

Hello, my name is Carla. I am starting this fundraiser to help my brother in Brazil who had just lost his wife, my beautiful sister in law Nivea to cancer. She passed away on the 14th December after just over a year battling cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, started treatment straight away. She tried so many different types of chemotherapy and radiation. Nothing worked. It spread to her liver, stomach, lungs and brain.

Nivea was the main caretaker of my nephew Bento who has severe autism. Bento is 15 years old and non verbal. He isn’t toilet trained, he isn’t able to feed himself and requires full time care and cannot be left unsupervised for even 10min. She was his world. They were a team.

Bento was born 32 weeks premature. When he was a few weeks old, he had bronchiolitis and nearly died. He had 3 cardiac arrests on his way to hospital. He was in hospital for 3 months. He had liver failure and the doctors said little Bento would not make it. What a fighter my nephew is! Unfortunately it has left him with lifelong disabilities. He takes lots of medication and suffer from epilepsy.

My brother Ivan is also disabled due to a car accident he had when he was 21 years old.

My brother is a family man. Works really hard to provide for his family. His only goal in life is to make sure when he’s gone Bento will be looked after and live with dignity.

This isn’t an easy thing in Brazil however he’s determined to make that happen.

Now that my sister in law has left us, my brother will need to employ someone to look after my nephew while he works. It’s a full time job to look after my darling Bento. Brazil isn’t like Australia. There’s no public schools that would cater for kids with disabilities as Bento. A private school costs A LOT of money in Brazil.

They live in São Paulo (due to my brother’s work) with no family support. My mum lives in Rio and Nivea’s mum passed away during COVID. Although my mum lives in Rio, she would do anything to help my brother and grandson but she’s 74 and cannot physically do it anymore. Bento is a little boy in a man’s body.

So so sad.

I really want to help him and by raising some money, I’m sure that will take such a pressure off his shoulders in this very difficult time. At least he’ll have the peace of mind to know he can afford a carer until he can find an affordable and permanent solution to their new life.

I honestly can’t even begin to imagine how hard their life will be.

I know the cost of living is so high at the moment and everything is just so expensive but if you can afford to spare any money please consider donating to my brother in Brazil. I’m already grateful for all my blessings and the time you spent reading this.

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive-to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love - then make that day count!” Unknown 

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted". Unknown 

♥️