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Let The Children Live! cares for the street-children by funding the work of Funvini, our Colombian offshoot. Pauline Allan, our Accounts and Publicity Secretary, recounts the sad story of a boy whom Funvini was not able to save.
Luis and his friends live on the street. I've known them since my first visit to Medellín in 1995. Each time I return I wonder if they will all still be alive.
Arriving outside the Patio, where they hang out, I could see a larger-than-usual group of scruffy teenagers camped there. A thin youth came forward and opened the taxi door, hoping for a tip, but as he looked inside the cab and saw me, he let out a hysterical shriek, "Paulina! Luis! Paulina! Paulina!" From numerous nooks and crannies figures came running. Luis and his friends, dirty, smelly, thin, hungry, and toothless, ran and threw themselves on me, hugging me like a long-lost friend.
As always, they took great care of me. Being street-wise they know all the dangers of the street and make sure I'm protected from them. Many of these young people, like Luis, are intelligent and could have made valuable contributions to their society, given the chance. Now, it's too late for them. I thought of Funvini's preventative work and was reminded yet again how vitally important it is that we should intervene in these young people's lives as early as possible after they come onto the street, before they are sucked into the crime, violence and drugs that street-life involves.
Although I knew most of the boys in the group, one seemed to be new. I certainly hadn't seen him on my previous visits. Yet, there was something vaguely familiar about him so I asked, "What's your name?"
"Giovanni", he replied. Now it was my turn to shriek: "Giovanni? GIOVANNI!" For this was a boy I'd last seen in 1995, when, only nine years old, he had run off to Cartagena on the coast. I'd looked for him every year since then, but without success and, since in Colombia six years is a long time to survive on the street, I'd given up hope, thinking he could be dead. Now, here he was in front of me, at fifteen, tall, and, remarkably, looked the best of the bunch. Cleaner and healthier than the others, with no smell of glue about him he was living at home with his mother and sister. Perhaps it was not too late to help him; perhaps he would like to go to school? Fr. Peter was keen to help him, so, just before I came home, I made the offer to him, giving him Casa Walsingham's phone number and urged him to ring.
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Funvini's street-educators searched for and found Giovanni again several times, and they kept trying to pursuade him to come into care. But in the end the glue addiction proved too strong for him, and he could not break free from street life. Last Christmas Eve, whilst looking at the lights in the city centre with his friends, he was knocked down and killed by a motorcycle.
What Giovanni didn't know was that whilst this was happening in Medellín, in the UK the latest issue of Bible Alive was carrying an article on Let The Children Live! written by Fr. Michael Johnstone. Amongst the photos used to illustrate this was one I had taken of Giovanni in 1995. The article has brought in a great deal of support, both financial and otherwise, and in this Giovanni has played his part. Though he didn’t know it, he did achieve something with his life after all.
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