CARF Brazil was established by Gregory J. Smith in São Paulo, in 1993. Gregory had already established The Children At Risk Foundation – CARF Norway in 1992, determined to benefit the street children of Brazil. In the initial years he gained valuable practical experience by living with the children on the streets and motivating them to leave such a negative and self-destructive environment, offering them an alternative home and lifestyle on a smallholding in the urban periphery of Diadema - SP. (See Greg's personal profile page on Matador.)

During the last decade, the experience gained guided the organization to create its Street Migration Prevention Programme to prevent vulnerable children and young people at risk from running away from their homes to live on the streets, developing this together with high-risk community children and street children in the process of leaving the streets. The essence of the work lies in the interest taken in and the knowledge of the personal situation of each child right from the first moment he or she becomes involved with our organisation.

Due to the success of this programme, CARF was forced to seek new solutions to cope with growing demands and in 2001 The Hummingbird Arts & Cultural Activity Centre became a reality. This allowed the organisation to expand its capacity from 80 children and young people to more than the 600 attended today.

CARF’s Street Migration Prevention Program is aimed at helping former street children and other at-risk community children in São Paulo, creating pathways of opportunity and a more dignified life. Most of our target population come from one of the most deprived and violent areas in the entire state of São Paulo, in situations of extreme poverty and social vulnerability. Many have special needs and require closer attention due to their unstructured family situation, which in some cases causes total neglect.
In addition, the centre supports the demands of our rehabilitation programme, serving the needs of already rescued street children or those coming off the streets.

The programmes of The Hummingbird Activity Centre are primarily preventive in nature and promote the confidence, character, competence, and "connectedness" of that population to their family, peers, and community. They provide a range of support and services in such areas as vocational training, health education, recreation, cultural understanding - tolerance and expansion, racial reconciliation, artistic expression, environmental awareness, and the development of youth entrepreneurship and leadership involving conflict resolution and decision-making skills.

The main Programmes carried out at present at the Hummingbird Activity Centre can be divided into three main groups:

Sporting Activities:
These promote corporal skills, spacial and bodily awareness, integration, team work, concentration, discipline and help cultivate a competitive spirit, all concepts that are essential for social interaction, living together and personal health care. Capoeira and Football are our two main sporting activities at Hummingbird.

Artistic and Cultural Development:
These cater for the cultural, artistic and aesthetic qualities of life with an emphasis on development of the creative potential, awakening skills and talents that, when used with free expression, can become useful instruments of self-development, communication and training.

Vocational Training:
These allow training through constructive and interactive work, awakening vocations and talents through guidance and access to specialist spheres, dynamics and techniques as well as encouraging the use of professional equipment and material.

The stated aim of the Hummingbird Street Migration Prevention Programme, to work for social inclusion without discrimination and its recognised competence in carrying out projects is the distinguishing feature of our work on social intervention, Through the serious commitment and dedication with which we carry out our work, and the good results we have had in cooperative projects with other agencies, the partnerships and dialogues with CARF as an external agent for cooperative ventures has grown and strengthened.

The most recent development in 2007 is the establishing of our new Brazilian NGO, The Hummingbird Cultural Network (RCBF - Rede Cultural Beija-Flor), to cater for a network of community prevention centres to be implemented by youth entrepreneurs trained at Hummingbird.
Included in this expansion proposal are the provision of three community nuclei, two along the same model of our existing Hummingbird Arts & Cultural Activity Centre and a unique Radio & Communications Nucleus, which will operate on an income-generating, self-sufficient basis. The centre will offer a voice to underprivileged communities in our region through an NGO-based radio station with ample sound recording studio, a graphical press for the production of a community newspaper and youth magazine, and an ICT - Information and Communication Technology Centre serving as a regional, national and international News Agency with an emphasis on social journalism and photography. This will be an important development in our long-term strategy of prevention, and its contribution to help diminish social inequality in Brazil.