Named one of the top 100 best non-governmental organizations of 2017 by Época Magazine, Mauricio Cunha’s Centro de Assistência e Desenvolvimento Integral is just getting started.

The Centro de Assistência e Desenvolvimento Integral, or CADI, is a Brazil-based organization that helps vulnerable children and adolescents from poverty-stricken areas. Children are educated according to Biblical principles and are taught tools to help them overcome the enormous social challenges that they face daily.

Children at the Centro de Assistência e Desenvolvimento Integral

“We started 23 years ago with helping a group of around 20 poor children,” says Mauricio. “Today, we reach around 18,000 beneficiaries and train hundreds of leaders every year.”

Mauricio says it was his training at the Haggai Leader Experience in 2003 that gave him the “energy and vision for acquiring extraordinary results.”

In fact, just since 2003, Mauricio has trained and impacted at least 2,000 people, and more than 80,000 people have participated in seminars and workshops promoted by CADI.

“Haggai’s main contribution was a vision of excellence and dependency on God,” says Mauricio. “After my Haggai Leader Experience, I started to pursue excellence in all areas of life, as a result of Christ’s character.”

Mauricio says being a Haggai leader is “a great honor and a huge responsibility,” and one he does not take lightly. He hopes to permanently expand CADI internationally, but his main challenges right now are getting resources to keep the project sustainable and getting society involved in social justice for the children and adolescents who are so often overlooked.

Mauricio says, “My desire is to influence the whole country in terms of policies that reflect the justice of the Kingdom of God.”