 |  |
 |
 |
| |
|
|
| 1 - 2005 Winter - Dreaming and Dying on Mexico’s StreetsBy Kari Costanza
“My mother would send us to get money for her drugs,” says Monserrat. “We would beg and clean windshields. Sometimes she sent us out to rob people.” Monserrat was abandoned on the streets after her mother was sent to prison. She was 9 years old. “At first I lived in a square. When I was 10, I met these kids. We fight, but they take care of me.” A dog named Manchas—Spanish for “spots”—provides further protection. He barks at strangers but lets the children hug him and bury their faces in his thick fur. The children need a watchdog. According to Paco Peña, World Vision’s director for street children programs, theirs is a dangerous life. They are subject to abuse, beatings, and rape. “They will go to jail, or they will die,” he says. “Children can’t survive for more than 10 years on the streets.” When it’s too wet or cold to sleep in the park, Monserrat sleeps in the sewers. It’s estimated 15,000 children live this way in Mexico City, but Paco says there may be three times more. The chronic poverty that affects half of Mexico’s population is partly to blame, as is the culture. “In this city of 20 million, 2.5 million children live with chronic domestic violence,” Paco says. Street life is no less brutal. “People call us bums. They call us insulting names. They call us thieves,” says street child Ulises Guzman, 14. “They say they don’t like the way we smell.” What can be done? World Vision’s rescue and recovery center, Niños de la Calle, is a safe place for street children and those at risk. Several fl oors of the shelter serve as a transitional home for former street children and those from violent homes. It’s a busy, happy place—each fl oor complete with bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, and space for children to make crafts, watch television, and dance. Those still living on the street also have a space at the center known as The Patio. For a few hours each week they can go there to play games, get hot food, showers, and medical treatment.
She begins to squish lice crawling from her shirt before she washes it. “How many have you found?” asks Ulises, squatting to help her. Ulises’ brother, Aaron, died on the street two years ago. “I miss him,” says Monserrat softly. Aaron was her boyfriend. Jesus, who saw Aaron die, cautions Monserrat: “He didn’t eat, and he took too much Activo—just like you.” Activo, a paint thinner, makes a cheap inhalant. Center staff encourage Monserrat to reform her lifestyle. She listens, but part of her holds back. “They understand me here. I think they love me. They tell me not to take drugs. They tell me I can move in, but the street wins me,” she says. Trial by Fire
Take Eliseo Lopez. Today Eliseo, 29, is a family man making a living as a carpenter. But he understands Monserrat’s world perfectly. At the age of 10, he too escaped a dysfunctional family for life on the streets. “I liked doing drugs—Activo, marijuana, and cocaine,” he recalls. “It made me forget about everything.” For three years he lived this way, sleeping in sewers or near a bus terminal. “It came down to robbing, beating, fighting, sex, drugs, and abuse by the police,” he says. “If we weren’t using drugs or getting beaten, it didn’t seem like a normal day.” Then “normal” changed. A group of Eliseo’s friends lived in an abandoned mechanics shop—the floor saturated with old but highly flammable oil. One day a street child walked in and tossed a lit candle on the floor. Nearly a dozen children died in the resulting inferno. Eliseo says that after that, he didn’t wantto be on the streets anymore. Fortunately, he was having regular contact with World Vision street counselor Elizabeth Vasquez. She assured him he would be welcome at the center. “After living in a sewer—now I had a home,” he says. Eliseo admits it was a struggle to stay off drugs, but center staff were a constant encouragement. “The happiest days of my life were when I lived with World Vision,” he says. “Now it’s work, work, work, but I have a family, I go to church. I am concerned about and responsible for others. I have a lot to live for.” Search for Salavation
Sometimes Monserrat worries about her friend Marisol. “She was very thin and she didn’t like to eat.She was shaking very bad and drooling,” Monserrat says. “It scares me. I don’t want to end up like her.” Street counselors Gustavo Peñaloza and Mirna Montalvo are there to calm her fears. Through them, Monserrat knows that God cares for her. “They tell me that he feels bad that we live the way we do,” she says. Gustavo and Mirna know the street children’s relationship with God is key to their survival. “Little by little we tell them that God loves them,” says Gustavo. “There’s hope for Monserrat,” says Gustavo. “There’s always hope as long as there is life.” He sits back on a bench in the park. This is his job: listening, counseling, loving, and praying for these children—trying to help them turn from the nightmare of street life to a future he knows is just a dream away. World Vision Mexico communicator Luis Armenta contributed to this story. |  | 1-888-511-6548 : P.O. Box 9716 World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.  | |||||||||||||
© 2008 World Vision Inc. | Site Search : Sitemap : Privacy / Security : Contact Info : Careers : Spanish : Korean : FAQs : Links : Donor Service | |||||||||||||||
