Life on the streets of Brazil’s 3rd largest city is far from easy. Approximately 5 million individuals inhabit Belo Horizonte, and the impoverished crowd dwell in slums that furnish the city’s mountainside circumference. These shanty areas are named “favelas” in Portuguese. Many favela kids end up hitting the streets to bring home cash to feed their families, and frequently to facilitate their mothers and fathers’ addictions. Most of the young children who work in the streets one day choose not to go back home at all.
Sidney Pereira de Silva e Souza was one of those favela child. At only six years old he was pressured to sell goods alone in the streets to support his large family and alcoholic father. He quickly fled from his abusive household to sleep in abandoned buildings, bus stops and on park benches, along with Brazil’s believed 1 to 8 million other street kids.
There Sidney observed a totally new world – a world run by kids and cared for by no one. This new world embraced him, adding him into an orchestrated machine which churns out hardened criminals, junkies and corpses.
By the time Sidney was 11 years old, he had been in and out of government institutions. He was a drug addict, burglar and gang member. He had escaped gang warfare, corrupt police and murderous vigilante squads. He had learned every single survival strategy the streets had to offer — survival tactics that were slowly killing him.
Then one day he heard about a group home run by international Christian organization, Youth With a Mission (YWAM). Called “The Rescue House,” it was a two-week program for detoxing road kids who wished to escape the streets. If these kids made it through two weeks without glue, paint thinner, alcohol or other drugs, and if they showed at the very least a semblance of respect for rules and structure, they would after that move into a more long term solution, “The Restoration House.”
To most street children, they were basically a secure place they could go every now and then for food, a shower and clean clothes. The vast majority of them in no way meant to leave the false freedom the streets provided them. Luckily, the coach of the Rescue Home (a former street kid himself) recognized Sidney’s wish to escape street life and offered him a room.
They were a difficult two weeks, but Sidney graduated to the Restoration House, where he was introduced to missionaries from all over the world. It was there where he met the future wife of professional athlete Damon J. Smith, who was going to the home on a short term mission trip. At the time, Sidney was seventeen years old and had already traveled to the United States, Papua New Guinea and Singapore with missionaries he met at the home. He spoke fluent English and earned grades at the top of his high school class. She was so amazed by the young man’s ambition that she gave him a copy of Smith’s sports motivational book, Don’t Stop the Swagger: Preparing the Mind, Body and Soul for Peak Performance. Sidney read the book, contacted Smith via electronic mail and the pair forged an immediate friendship.
“We related right off the bat,” Smith explained on his initially contact from Sidney. “After writing my book about all these people who had overcome tremendous hurdles to achieve their life’s purpose, here we had this kid from an entirely different part of the world who embodied the concept of overcoming. He was like a living example of perseverance. It was a natural progression to go down there and see what we might do to help push him forward.”
Damon was no stranger to assisting others attain their aims in life. Right after transitioning out of pro football and into corporate America, Damon started mentoring high school athletes as a avenue to university scholarships. He often spoke to adolescence groups, academic community organizations and enterprise groups, expressing the motivational message of endurance, mental toughness and work ethicseen in his book.
Over the next year,Smith and his fiance returned to Brazil twice to shoot a documentary on Sidney and other streetkids at the YWAM home. They kept in continued communication, and Sidney expressed his desire to author his lifestory to inspire street children around the world and educate those who don’t fully grasp the cycle of poverty in Latin America.
Abouta year afterthey launched the documentary, Smith got an email from the young man with a large attachment. It was a manuscript of his entire narrative, passionately written in English which may rival most Americanhighschool students. After a year of editing, drafting, re-drafting, and re-editing, Sidney’s narrative emerged in the shape of a complete memoir, Rescued to Tell: Diary of a Street Kid.
As a young adult, Sidney travels the globewiththe mission team which introduced Damon and his fiance to Belo Horizonte. Primarily based in Campinas, Brazil, the group makes frequent journeys throughout South America, Africa, Europe and the United States, ministering to the lost and destitute, teaching church outreach teams, and instructing new team members how tolive a lifestyle every day using a greater expectation in helping others.
Now thatthe reserve is out, Damon and Sidney take turns inspiring one another. Sidney’s goal was to publish his story and travel the world. And Damon had a goal of his own involving a lifelong passion for the sport he never had the chance to continue in his youth.
Once he quitplaying football, Damon dreamed of being the first individual ever beforeto cross over from professional football to professional motocross. It was a difficult transition, but using trademark diligence he showed people of all ages and backgrounds that they can achieve everything they put their minds to.Monthsfollowing releasing “Rescued toTell, ” Damonearned his professional motocross credentials and lined up to ride among the world’s top racers.
Riding next to factory riders usingcorporate sponsors emblazoned on their bikes and clothing, Damon humbly pursued his objective with a unique sponsorship of his own. On eithersideof his bike reads in large letters: “Don’t Stop the Swagger” and on the other, “Rescued to Tell.”
