At the Romdeng restaurant. Credit: Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
PHNOM PENH, Aug 16 2013 (IPS)

Following the death of his parents when he was just four, Samlain Chey, now 22, found himself living on the streets along the river near the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. Until he met a social worker from Mith Samlanh.

Mith Samlanh, which means ‘friends’, is a local organisation that facilitates reintegration of youth into their family, the public school system, the workplace and their culture. And it has found innovative ways of doing so.

It picks up homeless people and trains them as chefs at its training restaurants Romdeng and Friends. Besides what the restaurants do for the homeless, they do something for food – both have garnered local and international recognition for contemporary and traditional Khmer cuisine.

Samlain was 15 when the restaurants found him. They gave him a home and a future. “I was given housing while I learnt traditional Khmer cooking, and about the hospitality and service industry,” he told IPS. “After a month of learning I wanted to be a head chef and open my own restaurant.”

Upon completion of his three-year training, Samlain was offered a teaching position. As a former street youth, he feels he now has the opportunity to help others who are like him.

“For young people, it’s hard living on the streets because we don’t eat enough, there’s no security, we start using drugs and no one seems to care about our future.

“I’m happy working here because I’m also able to share my story, which gives the students the confidence they need to not give up.”

In Cambodia, 44.3 percent of the population of 15 million is under 18 years of age. According to official statistics, 35 percent of the population lives below the poverty line – which in Cambodia is 45 cents per person per day.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), between 10,000-20,000 children work on the streets of Phnomh Penh.

Seventeen-year old Bopha is one of them. She lived on the streets until she was 14. Bopha says it was difficult for her parents to support a family of eight selling cakes on the roadside in Phnom Penh.

“My life was very difficult because there were times when we couldn’t make enough money for food and I was unable to attend school,” Bopha told IPS.

“Things changed when a social worker from Mith Samlanh started visiting us on the streets to offer food. They asked me if I would be interested in gaining computer skills and learning traditional cooking. At first, I felt hesitant because I was afraid that if I left, I wouldn’t be able to help my family earn a living by selling cakes.” Later, she took the offer.

Finding work is a struggle. The economy has been unable to absorb the nearly 400,000 new labour market entrants per year.

According to the Ministry of Labour, some 200,000 to 300,000 youth migrate out of the country annually in search of low-skilled jobs due to lack of proper training or education – and lack of opportunities.

“Street children have lost their right to education,” Friends restaurant communication officer Menghourng Ngo told IPS. “For children aged 3-14 we provide informal education so that they integrate easily into the public school system. Youth aged 15-24 are more interested in employment, so we offer them vocational training at our centre.

“Our training focuses on developing confidence, self-respect, proper hygiene and hospitality skills. Upon completion, we assist in finding them jobs. Our nationality is Khmer so the programme also instils a sense of pride in the Khmer culture.”

The vast numbers of the young, and their vast problems, have caught political attention.

Approximately 50 percent of eligible voters are under 25, and calls to increase youth employment did well for the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in the elections last month.

Many believe that the 22-seat loss for Prime Minister Hun Sen in the elections sent a message to the ruling party that resentment among youth could deepen if their quality of life fails to improve.

“It’s my dream to see my family have a comfortable way of life. I would like to own a house and open my own business one day, sharing Khmer cuisine with the international community,” says Bopha.

“Since coming to Mith Samlanh, I feel more excited about my future. It’s very important that I was able to access their vocational trainings because now I will have the skills to make my dream a reality.”

Some 8,000 Talibés, which means students of an Islamic school, are still begging on Dakar’s street corners. Credit: Marc-Andre Boisvert/IPS

By Marc-Andre Boisvert
DAKAR/BISSAU , Jun 11 2013 (IPS)

In Dakar, urban commuters are familiar with kids as young as five years old begging on street corners at all hours of the day or the night, with torn, dirty clothes, collecting donations in an empty tin can.

Here, these boys are called Talibés, which means students of an Islamic school, or daara. Traditionally, they were sent to neighbourhood houses to “learn modesty through begging,” while spending most of their day studying the Quran with their teacher, the marabout.

But times have changed, and now a number of Talibés face a harsh life as some marabouts make a living out of the exploitation of these boys.

Several daaras can be found in Yoff, a poor neighbourhood in this West African nation’s capital city.

In one, located in an unfinished building, about 20 boys are sleeping on the concrete floor. There is no need to enter; everything can be seen from the street.

A Talibé on the streets says he is 12 years old, but looks six. He spends his day repeating: “Give me alms.”

Later, he tells IPS: “I have to bring back (one dollar) to the daara or my marabout will lash me with an electrical cable.” He cannot recite a single verse of the Quran. In his tin box, he has some sugar and coins given to him by people.

“People give to these kids without realising what’s happening. These kids are invisible,” Isabelle de Guillebon, the director of Samusocial Sénégal, an NGO helping street kids, tells IPS. In a shelter in Ouakam, a booming middle-class neighbourhood of Dakar, she and her staff accumulate horror stories. On her desk is an iron cast used to restrain the wrists of the Talibés. She says many of them are victims of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

When nine Talibés died after a daara burned down Mar. 3 in Dakar’s Medina neighbourhood, people in Senegal were outraged. Authorities closed down the daara and returned the children to their families, including 10 from neighbouring Guinea-Bissau.

It is not the first time the government has tried to act. Several NGOs, notably Human Rights Watch, have pressured the authorities, often pointing to the crossroads of Islamic authorities and political power as a reason for inaction.

In 2005 the government passed stricter laws against begging, including stronger sentences for mistreating children.

But some 8,000 Talibés are still begging on Dakar’s street corners. And three months after the Medina tragedy, little progress has been made towards a real solution to the problem.

De Guillebon is sceptical about easy solutions as she sees that the issue is far more complex than religion and politics.

“They are not Talibés. They are street kids,” she says. For her, the so-called Talibés are just part of the 10,000 to 12,000 street children roaming the streets of Dakar.

Since 2003, Samusocial has had two mobile teams travelling the streets of the Senegalese capital to work with these children.

“These kids face a breakdown in family ties. Many of them come from regions far away. They experienced a harsh psychological and sociological shock: they pass from the middle age to the 21st century,” says de Guillebon.

De Guillebon says the children need psychological support in order to be successfully reunited with their families. “There is a need for family mediation. There is a reason why they are there. It is a sociological crisis. And they will come back if you do not take care of that.”

The core of the issue, she says, is to convince parents to not abandon their children.

In neighbouring Guinea-Bissau’s capital, Bissau, Laudolino Carlos Medina heads the Associao dos Amigos da Criança or Association of Children’s Friends, which provides family mediation to assist in the repatriation of the boys, and to prevent them from being lured into a life of begging for marabouts. They are now busy getting ready to receive the 10 boys from Dakar.

“A number of children are lured to Dakar. Marabouts come to villages and take advantage of the lack of education and opportunities.”

Medina knows about several tricks used by marabouts to convince parents. “They bring two or three talibés who they have trained to sing one of the Quran surahs. Parents see how good the boys are, and entrust their own children to the marabouts thinking they will also do well.”

In Guinea-Bissau, 55 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and about 50 percent of children have never enrolled in school, according to the World Bank.

Ousmane Baldé, from Guinea-Bissau, makes the 17-hour commute from his country to Dakar several times a month. His sister sent her son to a daara in the Senegalese capital.

“I told them what I saw in Dakar before they sent their boy. But they are sure he is in good hands, no matter what I tell them. The family believes that he is ensured a better future, and that they are not responsible anymore.”

Back in Dakar, Ousmane Ndiaye, a Senegalese taxi driver, screams at two Talibés fighting on the street corner. “Look at those kids. Poor behaviour. Delinquents!”

Ndiaye sends his two sons and his daughter to daaras.

“They need to learn the Quran, like I did. But during the weekdays they go to the state school. My marabout agrees with that. I think that traditional and modern schools can go hand in hand. Kids need to have both. In daaras, my children have learnt our Islamic values. It is important for the Senegalese.”

Looking back at the two boys fighting, he adds, “And those kids learned none of them. They learn how to become criminals. Shame on their parents!”

Kaita (r) is one of thousands of Sierra Leonean children who have ended up homeless. According to a 2010 survey it is estimated that there are as many as 2,500 street children in Freetown alone. Credit: Tommy Trenchard/IPS

By Tommy Trenchard
FREETOWN , Jun 7 2013 (IPS)

On a street corner in downtown Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital city, 12-year-old Kaita sits with a friend on a peeling steel railing watching the headlights of motorbikes cruising through the otherwise silent streets. It is after midnight, and motionless human forms lie curled up in doorways or stretched out on pavements nearby. For Kaita, these streets are home, and have been for almost six years.

Kaita is one of thousands of Sierra Leonean children who have ended up homeless after being given away by their parents on false promises of education.

Joice Kamara is the deputy director of children’s affairs at the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs – until last year the focal point for the government’s anti-trafficking taskforce.

“Some of them (child traffickers) are relatives, some are strangers, some are friends – they go to the villages and they ask people to give them their children. They promise to give them the best education in the city,” she tells IPS.

Despite making significant progress since the end of an 11-year civil war in 2002, this West African nation remains one of the world’s least developed countries, with many rural families simply unable to effectively care for and educate all of their children.“Child protection is simply not a priority of the government.” -- Lothar Wagner

“Unfortunately when these children are brought to the cities, instead of (the child traffickers) fulfilling their promise to educate them … they engage them in child labour, some are used as sex-slaves, some are even used for rituals,” says Kamara.

Kaita’s uncle was looking after him, but rather than sending him to school the uncle neglected him and denied him food, ultimately prompting Kaita to run away. “It’s cold,” he says of his new life on the streets. “And all I get to eat is leftovers.”

Lothar Wagner is the head of Don Bosco Fambul, an NGO dealing with homeless children in Sierra Leone. “The reason that they (children) are on the streets is human trafficking,” he tells IPS. “After a certain amount of mistreatment many feel they have no option but to run away.”

According to a 2010 survey it is estimated that there are as many as 2,500 children sleeping rough every night in Freetown alone, though other estimates put the figure significantly higher.

Mohammed, 14, is one of them. He has been living on the streets since he was 12 – his only possessions a tattered Chelsea football kit, a thin sheet of cardboard to sleep on, and a wicker basket for clearing rubbish from the street, which earns him enough money to buy a little food.

All the children who spoke to IPS talked of the fear of abuse, to which they are very vulnerable. Crimes against street children are rarely investigated and are often allegedly committed by the police themselves.

“The police are not there to protect the children,” says Wagner. “They are there to exploit them.”

The medical report from one street child who was arrested, and claimed police beat him while in jail, details a series of arm wounds allegedly inflicted with batons and an electric probe.

A police spokesman denied the allegations. “It is absolutely false,” he tells IPS over the phone. “A deliberate attempt to smear the reputation of the Sierra Leone police. The station does not usually even have electricity, so how can we electrocute him?”

A few NGOs are taking action to reduce the prevalence of trafficking in Sierra Leone, and to reunite the victims with their families.

The Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAAST) has been raising awareness about the problem, as well helping to integrate trafficking issues into police training programmes. “All the recruits should now be getting training on what trafficking is, and how to deal with it,” says Janet Nickel, the organisation’s country director. FAAST also recently started a shelter for trafficked children.

Similarly, Don Bosco Fambul runs various shelters and programmes to support homeless children. “Child protection is simply not a priority of the government,” says Wagner, adding that it has neither the capacity nor the funding to protect children.

Back at the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs in Freetown, Kamara disagrees. She highlights some of the government’s successes in tackling the problem, including the conviction of 13 traffickers since 2005, who received sentences of up to 22 years. “The government is really helping, and working hard to eliminate trafficking in Sierra Leone” she says.

A 2012 report by the United States Department of State concluded that while the government is trying its best it is still not yet fulfilling all its anti-trafficking responsibilities.

Street children in Karachi prepare for their World Cup next year. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS.

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Apr 7 2013 (IPS)

Oblivious to the cloud of dust they have kicked up in just a few minutes, panting and sweating, moving lithely, this way, then that, they jostle the ball smoothly until one team scores a goal.

There’s a loud cheer. Wiping the sweat off his brow, young Iman Hussain throws up his hands in frustration, looks with displeasure at the scoreboard, and shouts: “Concentrate, you guys!”

Just 12, Hussain is among a motley group of boisterous young boys who are having a practice match of football at one of Karachi Municipal Council (KMC) sports complex grounds in Karachi. Of all sizes, and aged between 10 and 16, they have been selected after Karachi-wide trials to form the Street Strikers. It will be among teams from 20 countries to compete for the 2014 Street Child World Cup, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil.

Clad in a black-and-red striped T-shirt, black shorts, knee-high black socks and shoes, Hussain is known for his agility, but as much for his temper. “They like my passing and that is why I have been chosen for the team,” he tells IPS proudly.

Hussain, till a few years ago, was a deft pickpocket, living off the streets of Karachi. He is among Pakistan’s 1.2 million to 1.5 million children living on the streets. He had run away from home when he was just seven because his older brother used to “tie him up” and beat him blue for not “paying attention to studies.” Son of a fisherman, he has five brothers and six sisters.

Today, he has been reintegrated back into his family, has joined school and counts football among his foremost passions. “I want to show the world I am good at something!” he says, adding a little excitedly: “It will be my first time on an airplane!”

The initiative was taken by Azad Foundation (AF), a non-governmental organisation that has been working for Karachi’s street children since 2001. They provide meals, shelter, healthcare and education through three drop-in centres to close to 3,500 of Karachi’s over 12,000 street children. Currently, a little over 100 among them are going through various stages of a rehabilitation process, and will finally get reintegrated.

Since the beginning of the year, AF has started a five-year Sports for Development project. “In Karachi, we are working in three (of the 18 administrative units) and in the rest of the three provinces, we are collaborating with organisations already working with street children,” Ali Bilgrami, who heads the sports project, tells IPS. “Initially, we will focus on football, but if there is demand for other sports we can always include cricket and hockey.” However, he emphasises, it will have to be a team sport.

Itfan Maqbool, spokesperson for AF, hopes the World Cup will help in “educating society to the realities of the issue of street children and how these children survive, fending for themselves.”

These boys have been training for over three months now and have played matches with other teams who have been playing for many years. A lot has changed since then – most of all, their behaviour.

“They have certainly become less aggressive,” says Maqbool.

Coach Haris Jadoon finds that the kids have been able to work on anger management issues to quite an extent. “When we started, I found them a much rowdier bunch, refusing to do their warm-up exercises or follow rules or even pay heed to the whistle. All they wanted to do was to get hold of the ball and start playing.

“Losing was unthinkable for them and throwing a tantrum, getting angry and crying was common. Slowly, however, they realised that it’s a team sport and they can win only if they work as a team,” he says.

He adds: “Through the process of teaching them the rules of the game, we teach them qualities like fairness, hard work, honesty, while building their confidence and communication skills.”

Sadia Ahmed, a psychologist with AF, knows each boy well and says her job has been made much easier ever since the boys started playing football. “It’s half my job done,” she says. “They are much happier, easier to manage and more receptive to you. I also find many have grown taller and bigger in the last couple of months,” she tells IPS.

For Itfan, however, the biggest success has been that since they started playing, quite a number of the boys have been more amenable to reintegrating into family life, which is the ultimate aim of the foundation.

Owais Ali, 16, plays as a defender. He left home when he was seven. He says he got tired of being continuously hit by his parents. He returned home when he was 13, but “I have an older brother who had also run away before me and has not returned,” he says.

“It’s a hard life out there,” he says, reflecting on the realities of the street child experience. “You cannot imagine what a seven-year old goes through on the streets of Karachi – he is harassed by street gangs and the police. Many are abused physically as well as sexually.” Ali also confesses to having smoked hashish.

At the same time, the lure of a life free from family restrictions, poverty, school and housework is enough to make many want to continue where they are, Maqbool points out.

“We are trying to make them realise what it means to live within the folds of a family. Just like in sports, a family is like a team where each member takes care of the other and helps make the team a success. At the same time, parents too have to realise that these children need love, affection and respect. Both sides have to overcome their past and move on,” says Maqbool. (END)

Non-governmental organisations in Mexico are presenting a complaint Friday Nov. 2 before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about government mistreatment and “social cleansing” of thousands of people living on the street in several of the country’s cities.

Among the cases cited by the plaintiffs are Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, on the U.S. border, where they allege that homeless people and panhandlers are being removed outside the city limits by the police.

The same practice, with variations, is occurring in the western city of Guadalajara, which has an urban planning programme designed to remove the homeless from the centre of the city, and in Mexico City itself, where they are being taken from the historic centre of the city and forced to live under bridges, viaducts or elevated highways, increasing their vulnerability.

Activists say the common denominator of all these actions is the violation of the rights of street people, a sector for which the outgoing Mexican government of conservative President Felipe Calderón lacks specific policies.

The session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights “will make the state give an appropriate answer, and will open up a long-term process for human rights violations to be redressed as part of a public agenda,” Juan Martín Pérez, the executive director of the Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico (REDIM), told IPS.

Pérez, whose coalition is made up of 73 child rights advocacy groups, will attend the hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C.

Reliable official statistics on children, young people and adults living or working on the streets of Mexico’s large cities are hard to come by.

For instance, the Institute of Social Assistance and Integration, an agency of the Secretariat of Social Development of Mexico City, recorded 3,467 men and 547 women living on the street last year, based on attendance at their shelters.

But NGOs estimate the number of people on the streets of the Mexican capital at between 15,000 and 30,000. Children, teenagers, adults and the elderly can daily be seen wiping windshields, selling sweets or cigarettes or simply begging.

In spite of several years of economic growth, 52 million of the country’s 112 million people were living in poverty at the end of 2010, according to the latest figures published by the state National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy. Approximately 23 percent of these, or 11.7 million people, were extremely poor.

Mexico City “is a paradigmatic case, because it prides itself on being an avant garde city that respects human rights, but it is characterised by social cleansing,” activist Luis Enrique Hernández, the director of El Caracol, a local NGO, who has worked since 1994 with street people and will be part of the mission to Washington, told IPS.

The Federal District Commission for Human Rights (CDHDF) defined the practice as “the removal of personae non gratae from certain places, without any legal justification, just because they live on the streets.”

REDIM and the Mexican Alliance of Street Populations requested this special hearing by the Commission, which has also invited the ministries of foreign relations and social development, as well as the leftwing government of Mexico City.

At the hearing, the organisations will denounce the living conditions in nine Mexican cities where, they allege, the rights to personal integrity, equality, non-discrimination, freedom from human trafficking, due process and freedom are being violated.

People living on the street often suffer harassment from city government officials or the police to remove them from their places of work or where they sleep, they say.

The CDHDF has received at least 65 complaints of abuse against street people since 2009.

“There have been limited actions and temporary programmes, but they have not made up for the absence of a public policy,” Pérez said.

Activists like Pérez have received threats because of their work, and will also ask the Commission to take special measures to protect them, said Hernández.

The Mexico City government of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, of the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution, is preparing to implement an Information System for Street Populations, that will make it possible to monitor the care afforded these groups, and the Multidisciplinary Care Protocol for First Contact with Street Populations.

But experts criticise the way these programmes have been designed.

“The Protocol is merely palliative. It should have been the product of recognition of the successful efforts of NGOs. And why weren’t the street populations invited to take part as active participants?” asked Alicia Vargas, general director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Social Development (CIDES), who will also be attending the hearing.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed “concern at the still high number of street children” in Mexico, in its final observations in the 2006 report on Mexico’s compliance with the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It said “insufficient measures” were taken by the government “to prevent this phenomenon and to protect these children,” and recommended the state “undertake regularly comparative studies on the nature and extent of the problem.”

In particular, the Committee, made up of 18 independent experts, regretted “the violence to which (street) children are subjected by the police and others.”

After the hearing, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will analyse the information provided by the parties and issue recommendations for the Mexican state.

Arrayed in colourful garments they have made themselves, six teenagers who used to be street kids in Fortaleza, in northeast Brazil, visited this southern Spanish city to recount their life experiences and awaken solidarity.

“If I hadn’t been rescued off the street, I would have been marginalised and fallen into a life of prostitution and drugs,” Jonatan, a former street kid, told IPS.

Now 21, for the last four years Jonatan has been participating in programmes at the Associação de Solidariedade aos Meninos e Meninas de Fortaleza (ASMMF – Association for Street Children in Fortaleza), a city of 2.5 million people ranked as the fifth most violent in Brazil.

Tall and slim with long, straight hair, Jonatan has completed a sewing course and is now studying physical education in Brazil thanks to sponsorship from Spain.

Teenagers who had a tough childhood in northeast Brazil perform Afro-Brazilian dances in Málaga. Credit:Ines Benítez/IPS

The Brazilian organisation also opened doors for Jonatan’s first job as a dance teacher, and today he is educating other vulnerable children and young people.

The ASMMF was created 20 years ago, and for the last 17 years it has been in partnership with the Asociación Niñas y Niños de la Calle (Street Children Association) of Málaga, which organised the recent three-week visit to Spain of the group of young Brazilians from the Fortaleza project to perform traditional folk dances.

This is the latest of a series of visits, some of them paid for by public funding, by the young beneficiaries of the work of the two partner associations, whose mission is to empower and give training to teenage victims of sexual exploitation, single mothers and transvestites in extreme poverty, and support them in getting a job.

The young people, between the ages of 13 and 21, returned to Brazil May 30 after giving 27 performances of traditional dances in the space of 20 days, in schools, cultural centres, the premises of civil society organisations and the Málaga town hall, for a total of 5,000 spectators.

“The aim is to show how dance has helped to change their lives, and to raise awareness among the people of Málaga,” Mario Almeida, a Brazilian educator working for the Málaga association, told IPS.

Regina Mesquita, the Brazilian coordinator of the Fortaleza project, told IPS about the enormous social divide and the structural violence in the teeming city, “where girls and boys as young as nine turn to prostitution to earn money for their families.”

As a consequence of the sexual exploitation, many children and adolescents become illegal drug users, “often as a means of making their life more bearable,” said Mesquita, who warned of increased numbers of cases of sexual abuse, rape and murder.

The young people have found in dance and music an escape from the problems of dysfunctional families in the favelas or shantytowns. They make their own costumes for the performances, as part of a job-training workshop for producing handmade clothes.

In 1997, the Fortaleza association opened a day centre called Casa de Andaluzia (Andalusia House) where children can come once they have been contacted on the street. They are encouraged to participate in educational activities, alternative literacy training, sewing workshops or the dance group “Estrelas da rua” (Street Stars).

In the last 17 years, some 400 young people have participated in the sewing workshops, and thousands have passed through the ASMMF project, the head of the Málaga association, Belén García, told IPS. She said 90 percent of those who attend the sewing courses leave the streets.

She also said 30 percent of those who take part in Casa de Andaluzia programmes find jobs, and between 40 and 50 percent go back to school.

Casa de Andaluzia, a two-storey building, has four teachers, whose efforts largely target girls who work in, or are at risk of falling into, child prostitution.

“During this visit we have been able to secure sponsorship for all six of the young people so that they can complete their studies in Brazil,” the sponsorship coordinator in the Málaga association, Irene García, told IPS.

At present around 20 girls and boys in Fortaleza are sponsored through the Street Children Association of Málaga. Some live on the support they receive, and others use it to pay for university or professional studies, the association’s web page says.

“For me, dancing is like salvation. If I didn’t dance, I would be lost on the streets. It has changed my life,” said 19-year-old David, who has been going to Casa de Andaluzia in Fortaleza for a year now, and has been a keen dancer since he was seven, because he “loves it.” He told IPS that the association has helped him become less shy and more mature.

Mesquita said the ASMMF uses dance performances as a bridge to establish contact with children on the street. The kids who are attracted to it start coming to dance classes and later move on to workshops where they learn to make handcrafted clothing.

She described the huge demand for the sewing workshops: 500 applications were received for the last course, which had room for 40 participants. The teaching team at the centre, consisting of educators and social facilitators, are nearly all women between the ages of 20 and 40.

The goals are to get the children to stay in or go back to school, build their self-esteem, provide training and offer them opportunities to join the labour market, said Mesquita, who stressed that “it’s a slow process, one step at a time.”

“There’s a lot of violence on the streets, including muggings and fights,” said 16-year-old Bianca, who has belonged to the association’s dance group for the past year. “I went to watch a rehearsal, and I really liked it,” she told IPS.

Casa de Andaluzia also offers rapid HIV testing, a pioneer service in Fortaleza, the head of the Málaga organisation said.

The association also works with younger children in the favelas of Fortaleza, where the educators hold monthly meetings.