On the street of broken dreams.

On the street of broken dreams

Pedro never wanted to be a shoeshine boy. He dreamt of becoming a doctor, but his family did not have enough money to feed him, let alone educate him. He left school at the age of eight to work on the street and soon ended up living there. Now 12, Pedro shines shoes in the daytime and sleeps in a park with other street kids at night. He does not think about becoming a doctor anymore; he concentrates on survival.

Pedro is not alone. Although no firm statistics are available, the 1989 UNICEF annual report estimates that as many as 100 million children live on the streets of the world's big cities.

Their number has risen dramatically in the past decade, as the world recession, the debt crisis, and civil strife in Latin America, Africa and Asia, pushed many rural families into already crowded urban slums throughout the third world.

UNICEF says that street children fall into three broad categories. The largest group--"children on the street"--includes those who still have family connections. They live at home, sometimes even attend school, but must work to help their families make ends meet.

The second group--"children of the street"--consists of boys and girls who see the street as their home. Although they still have some family ties, it is on the streets that they seek shelter, food, and a sense of family among their companions. Abandoned children--those who have completely broken off with their family-- make up the third group.

Street children are deprived not only of skills but also of social values. Life on the street is tough, and to alleviate their plight, they often turn to drugs and crime. The eight-year old who starts his street career shining shoes, guarding cars, or selling sweets often ends up lifting wallets, robbing stores, dealing dope or prostituting himself.

The answer:

community-based

services

For a long time, national authorities dealt with the problem of street children mainly by locking up the most troublesome of them in institutions. "Many government leaders preferred to deny their very existence in order to avoid embarrassing publicity," a leading expert on street children writes in Protecting Working Children, a forthcoming UNICEF publication.

The year 1979--International Year of the Child--was a turning point, making the plight of street children a global issue. The early 1980s saw the creation of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Geneva-based Defense for Children International and Streetwise International in the United Kingdom, while UNICEF put the protection of street children worlwide high on its agenda.

With this international mobilization came a new emphasis on community-based services rather than institutions. The idea is to prevent "children on the street" from becoming "children of the street" by involving them in the life of the community.

"No matter how good some institutions may be," a UNICEF official said, "the institutionalization of street children must always be the last resort, and then only for those to whom no other options are open."

The Brazilian Government pioneered a new, community-based approach in 1982 by working with NGOs, churches and other grassroots groups to set up hundreds of support programmes throughout the country, including counselling, street schools and free meals. Some 100,000 Brazilian street children are now being reached.

Brazil inspired similar efforts by the Government of the Philippines, which hosted in Manila the first Asian Conference on Street Children, in May 1989. International co-operation was also enhanced by the creation in 1986 of Childhope, a UNICEF-supported NGO headquartered in Guatemala.

Childhope was founded to serve as a vehicle for inter-NGO partnership on behalf of the world's street children, and has now programmes with local groups in more than 100 countries.