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Issue 1 |
The Newsletter of LET THE CHILDREN LIVE! |
Autumn 1994 |
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One Way Ticket! The story of Peter Walters' first trip to Colombia, and what happened next... | |
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What we're working for... | |
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Volunteers | |
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Donations & Fund-raisers - Some of the ways in which money has been raised | |
In 1982, PETER WALTERS, a young student for the Anglican priesthood, decided to take a look at Latin American Christianity - there are more Christians in Latin America than in the rest of the world put together, yet in Europe we know so little about them. Colombia became his destination purely by chance. The Colombian national airline was offering the cheapest flights!
Peter landed in the capital, Bogota, a vast throbbing city of 3 million people, and made his way to Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast, a city of wonderful churches, good hotels and fine beaches - great for a holiday if you have money. Peter found, to his alarm, that the cut-price ticket - with no return date on it - was not such a bargain after all. The airline could offer him no return flight at the end of his holiday, and he had to stay 2 weeks longer than he expected. Decisions were necessary - either he could eat reasonably well and sleep on the silvery beaches, or get a cheap hotel room and eat about every other day! And so it was that he found himself in parts of the city the tourist rarely sees.
It was the children he noticed - everywhere - asleep on pavements, roaming around, aimless with nothing to do, approaching strangers with with begging hands. He became their target, but as soon as they realised that this tourist who had little Spanish and very little money was going neither to harm them nor be able to help them, they became curious and friendly. They offered him scraps of food they had foraged for themselves, showed him the cheap places to buy it, and trailed around with him, helping him to survive like themselves.
Peter heard stories he couldn't believe - how they lived on the streets and in the sewers - with nothing to eat or live on but what they could earn, beg or steal. That they had no contact with their parents - in many cases their fathers had been murdered. When policemen appeared, he noticed how they vanished, reappearing when the coast was clear. He saw their scars and heard their accounts of violence and abuse. He watched them polishing shoes, washing car windscreens, and hawking sweets, cigarettes, flowers and fruit. These children as young as six, told him of drugs and prostitution, robbery and violence.
This young student decided to do something - he rang the bell and requested an audience with the Roman Catholic Bishop - who turned out to be an Archbishop! There seemed nothing strange in his request to be seen: the Archbishop was available every morning for anyone at all who would like to talk to him. He listened patiently to Peter's faltering Spanish, nodding and confirming that what the children had said was true. "Then why," demanded this young student, coming to the purpose of his visit, "Why isn't the Church doing something to help?"
Good bishops have a way of discerning vocations - especially in passionate young men and women burning with righteous zeal or anger. Far from being offended, he told Peter about the various projects the Church runs for the street-children, and agreed that so much more could be done,. given more money and resources. Peter went away thoughtfully, spending more days with the children. Next week he returned to the Archbishop, to hear him say, "You came here asking me to do something for the street-children - maybe God is telling you He wants you to do something!"
So from 1982 to 1993, Fr. Peter, by then an Anglican priest, saved all his money and holidays to go out twice a year to help the children he had found on the streets. His only sorrow and regret? - That, sadly, he never did again meet those little ones from that first life-changing visit of 1982! In January 1994, Fr. Peter decided time had come to make a greater commitment. Having founded Let The Children Live! to raise funds, he went out to live in Medellín, where he now works with the street-children.
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A boys' home in Pereira, Esta Es Mi Casa was threatened with closure because a Swiss Charity pulled out. It is the only organisation in that city which provides residential care. Fr. Peter personally went to look at the work, was impressed, and decided it must continue otherwise crowds of children would go back on the streets to prostitution or death. "As the number of street-children increase and people become aware that there are no facilities to get them off the streets, there is great danger that the death squads will appear again and start shooting the children to reduce their 'surplus population'." As a result of Fr. Peter's efforts, the City Council has agreed to provide 20% of its costs for a year, and Let The Children Live! has committed itself to the rest (about £15,000). Please Help!
In Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is a preventative project which Fr. Peter was invited to visit, one of 8 or 9 models around the world. Fr. Peter thinks that much can be learned from it. They have no Centre, but are teams of doctors and medical workers who provide attention both the street-children and street-workers. They also feed 120 children a day. They are in great need of funding, and as a result of their appeal the Let The Children Live! has committed itself to the food programme which costs about 25p per child per day, or about £11,000 per year.
The Director of Proyecto Alternativas, Dr. Don Kaminsky, writes to say: 'You simply cannot believe how delighted we were to receive your fax and then the wire deposit of $5000 which arrived here on 18th July. It was such good news and we are all truly grateful to you... we hope that Fr. Peter will have the opportunity at some future date to visit us again and personally assess the results of the feeding programme you are so generously supporting.'
At Don Bosco City a grant from Let The Children Live! has enabled work to be started on a night-shelter for Medellín's street-children. "I arrived here on a Sunday night," Fr. Peter recounts, "and gave the Salesians the cheques on the Monday morning. Work actually started on the Tuesday, so they didn't waste time! The hostel opens this year to provide for a further 50 children.
| Juan Guillermo, a youngster whose legs were shot away will have the cost of a further operation paid for by Let The Children Live! | |
| In the last 10 of the 12 years Fr. Peter has been going to Medellín no less than 36,000 children are said to have been murdered - 10 a week. Some of them Fr. Peter has known. Worse still, many of the children know when their time has come because pictures and posters appear in the local community to attend their funeral. Businessmen, exasperated by the breakdown of law and order perpetuated by the powerful drug barons, hire assassins to 'cleanse' the neighbourhood of the 'undesirable'. | ![[Picture]](images/wchair.jpg)
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| Let The Children Live! at present does not employ volunteers, but encourages them to work at Don Bosco City. This is where the Salesian Fathers run a well-structured Centre. In a 'halfway-house' they befriend the street-children and give them residential care and education. There, some 60 boys are adjusting to residential care before moving into Don Bosco City itself. | |
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The first volunteers were Chris Gregory and Leanda Reed who made good use of their 'gap' year between school and university. Then we had Caitlin Scott, an undergraduate from St. Andrew's University, who is writing a thesis on street-children. Caitlin learned about Let The Children Live! from her Grandma who heard Fr. Peter speaking to a Methodist group in Wells-next-the-Sea. It is amazing how word gets around! Volunteers need to speak relatively fluent Spanish otherwise they get in the way, says Fr. Peter. All these three made a valuable contribution to the work as well as to their own education! |
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