Abstract:
The article deals with the creation and organization of the Social Work Service, acare institution founded in the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1934 to meet a very diverse audience, consisting of individuals wandering the city’s central streets without any resource, homeless families, single mothers and their children as well as children of poor families without access to education. In its origin, there are young professional women, the nurses of the Nurse School of the National Department of Public Health and social assistants graduated at the first Social Service courses organized in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro from 1932. They were joined by the philanthropic women of the Rio de Janeiro elite with experience in welfare works and members of the Rotary Club of Rio de Janeiro. Social Work Service was one of the first institutions to implement a diversified program of social assistance based on scientific methods and on the technical principles of hygiene and the nascent Social Service, with the decisive voluntary work of women with professional qualification and of the philanthropists.
Keywords:
Social Work Service; social assistance; philanthropy; women