Street Children

Facts

• Street children is a term used for both children who have no family and literally live on the streets and for children who may have a parent, but they make their money in the streets.

• There are over 100 million children

living on the streets throughout the world. Approximately half live in Latin America although Latin America makes up only 8% of the world population.

• Daily these children will experience sexual exploitation, labor exploitation, hunger, lack of shelter, drugs and currently the biggest problem: homicide among street children themselves.

• “In Peru, it is reported that street children have been adopted out and taken to Italy or Switzerland where they were put into a comatose state and their organs were harvested, more widely spread, however, is children being used in sex trafficking rings.”

• “In Colombia, two decades of guerrilla wars have left one million children internally displaced or refugees. Some 7,000 children were conscripted as "child soldiers."

“In Cochabamba, Bolivia, they are called "ninos de goma" (glue kids),

because they consume inhalants to abate and cope with their hunger.”

But there is hope…

• There are organizations such as UNICEF, Southern Cross Humanitarian, Children International Network, and World Vision that are working to care for these children who have been discarded to the streets.

• They provide shelter, food, education, health care, and work to help establish and grow them as developing members of society.

• The problem is, they need people like us to volunteer and they need donations to fund getting these children off the streets and establishing them into society.

How You Can Help• Sponsor a child, a drop center, or make a

donation. Providing monetarily allows these orphanges to keep the children off the street and provide a life for them. The drop centers are what initially gets the children off the street providing a place for food, shelter, and a bath but only temporarily.

• Raise awareness about how widespread the problem is. I conducted a poll that revealed 10 out of 10 USF students don’t realize there are 100 million street children in the world.

• Go on a humanitarian expedition. Help with construction and building projects while also forming relationships with these street children.

• Buy goods produced from organizations such as Southern Cross Humanitarian or purchase from places that donate a percentage of their profits to these organizations such as Albertsons.

• Collect and donate items that orphanages and organizations could use such as clothing, cloth diapers, shoes, etc.

Southern Cross Humanitarian Video