CHILDREN-ARGENTINA: Art to the Rescue of Children

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 27 1999 (IPS) - Theatrical offerings in the Argentine capital this month have been enlivened by a stage drama starring three homeless children as part of the professional cast.

The three young actors, aged 12, 16 and 17 years, appeared in the play “Dawn Under the Bridges,” as part of an artistic workshop developed by the Centre to Assist Children and Adolescents (Caina), which helps some 2,000 boys and girls every year.

“Now we carry a responsibility, so we spend less time on the streets, we come to rehearse, try to sleep well and be a little more mature,” said 12-years-old Federico Correa after the show’s premiere, delighted to be earning 300 dollars a month as an actor.

In truth, the play is only “the tip of the iceberg,” sociologist Julieta Pojonovsky, the director of Caina, told IPS.

“Just 30 percent of (the children) who come let us work with them with real continuity,” she said. “The others cannot, and often show up here badly beaten.”

Kicked out of their homes for a variety of reasons, the children who live in the streets of Buenos Aires have free, voluntary access to the centre, where they are fed, bathed and given the chance to participate in artistic workshops and sports.

The centre’s philosophy is quite different from the social workers who go out into the streets and, in many countries, often do not achieve good results, said Pojonovsky.

The centre offers classes in pottery, photography, comic strip art and journalism, from which the children have produced a magazine called “Street Kids of Buenos Aires,” in addition to writing courses, metal workshops, circus arts and kite-flying.

There is also is a small football field and a computer room.

“Our objective is for these children to start to feel that they are recognised as people from the first time they walk in,” said Cecilia Felgueras, the secretary of Social Promotion of the Buenos Aires government.

Felgueras added that the workshops were just a “strategic tool in social management,” and “what we really want, is to help restore the links with their families, where possible, to discover hidden talents and to assist them in creating their own projects.”

Pojonovsky recognised that some children actually were better off on the street than in their own homes, especially in those cases in which their families were shattered or they had “abusive or alcoholic parents, or a stepfather who beats both the mother and children.”

“When you go out into the street, what does your mother say to you?” one of the children asks another in the Caina workshops. The answer is simple: “Nothing, because my house is very small and there isn’t room for everybody.”

The director of Caina remarked that in the last five years, the number of street children in the Argentine capital has exploded, “a phenomenon associated with extreme poverty,” adding that the number of girls has notably increased.

In the past, girls were only about five percent of the total number of children living on the street, but now they represent 30 percent.

However, Pojonovsky emphasised that female children have better prospects for rehabilitation, because “they talk more, they more readily express what has happened to them, and they understand that they are more physically vulnerable, so they watch out and take better care of themselves.”

The programme developed by Caina – in addition to introducing children to the world of art – includes a campaign urging the public not to shut the doors of opportunity to these children or discriminate against them because of their situation.

The centre also has developed a programme to raise the awareness of health care professionals in public hospitals, so they will not call the police or courts every time a street child shows up alone and without identification in search of medical assistance.

“I had the mange for two months, but I was scared to go to the hospital because of the police. They healed me at Caina. Signed, Luis.” The brief note written by one of the visitors to the centre is accompanied by a child’s drawing and was published in the magazine “Street Kids.”

A quick tour of Caina reveals the centre’s differences with the typical homeless shelter, which children avoid at all costs because they feel like prisoners, with rigid guidelines and lacking emotional bonds or activities that awaken their interest.

At the tables of Caina, children sit down to eat among their teachers and, when the meal is done, are free to go.

“They’re not accustomed to limits, but here we have a few rules that must be respected, like no fighting, no taking drugs and no stealing,” Pojonovsky explained.

The municipal secretary of Buenos Aires signed an agreement with 40 non-governmental organisations that provide homes for children without a place to live because they are unable to return to their families.

“The agreement with those organisations is that they will not prevent (the children) from going back to their own homes, and that they will create a family atmosphere, that is, there is a couple who lives together, rather than shift workers, and no more than 20 people will reside in the home,” said Felgueras.

This type of treatment complies with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recommends that the littlest ones be given a home instead of a shelter, in which they can grow and develop, she added.

The story of the three young actors made a powerful impression on boys and girls living in the street. The three actors appeared on the front pages of local newspapers the day after their stage premiere, and now many other street children are clamoring to work in the theatre, although behind the scenes.

“We get frustrated with ourselves a lot, something we think is going to work doesn’t and then other things do,” explained Pojonovsky.

“The school here didn’t work, but we continue to experiment, what counts is that for a moment they feel a little spark, and that they build a life-affirming project,” she remarked.