Food for thought

It was my fifth trip to Colombia, so you would have thought I'd have known better than to cause a food-riot!

Lewis is a teenager in Medellin whom I've known for four years. Although addicted to glue and living on the street, he has always been kind and looked after me. This year I found him living on the pavement, near the Day Centre run by Don Bosco City, with a gallada of about 14 boys and girls. (A gallada is a sort of street-gang ).

Two days before I was due to come home, I offered to buy a complete meal for everyone, as a treat before I left. There were 15 in the gallada that day. We waited on the corner and an hour passed. The group, whose numbers had now increased to almost 30, was growing restless, and more hungry by the minute. Many were also high on glue. My friend Lewis had disappeared, but the older boys were trying to keep order and made the kids form a queue. Eventually, two men arrived, with two trays of neatly boxed food and cups of coke and began to give them out, one between two now, since the numbers had doubled.

I should have realised what would happen long before this, but my brain was being particularly dense that day. Suddenly, one of the older boys ran away with a box all for himself. The middle part of the queue, seeing this, gave a great cry and surged forward. A fearsome fight broke out. Horrified, I didn't notice that some children from the back of the queue had surged around behind me. Only when I saw one of the cafe owners jump back somewhat hastily, did I realise the peril I was in. As the boys surged forward I struggled to keep on my feet and narrowly missed being knocked over and trampled on. They had nothing against me personally; it was just the basic survival instinct taking over.

One of the boys had a large piece of wood and he began to beat the child beneath him who was nearer to the food than he was. I thought I was going to be responsible for the death of a child, and all because I'd tried to feed the hungry! At that point one of the cafe owners dived into the scrum ... 'thank goodness,' I thought, 'he's going to rescue the child.' Seconds later he emerged, clutching his metal tray, now covered in squashed food and spilled drink, and showed it to me in disgust. I tell you this, not to pass any sort of judgement on him, but to illustrate the implications of the name 'the Disposable Ones' : the street children really are 'disposable'; worth less than the price of a metal tray.

Eventually, the group dispersed as there was no one left lying on the ground, and no blood around. I breathed a sigh of relief. A few boys were left kneeling on the pavement, trying to gather scraps of the food, which was now scattered all over the street, with the trampled cups and spilt coke. I felt devastated, and so sorry for the kids who had waited patiently and still got nothing.

What lessons did I learn? First, that's it's quite easy to make this sort of mistake; the important thing is to learn from it. Fr. Peter confessed to me that he himself had made similar mistakes in his early days. Next, that street children are often not 'cute and cuddly' ... sometimes they are, but not always. Many are big, spotty and difficult! How do we help them? I asked Fr. Peter, after my experience and his answer taught me two important things. It's much better to work through a Charity than to 'go it alone', no matter how good one's intentions; and, it's so very important to get to the children when they first come onto the street, before they get sucked into a life of drugs and crime. The longer they are on the street and the older they get, the harder it is to help them.

The 'cute and cuddly' little boys and girls of today will turn into the hardened criminals and drug-users of tomorrow, with little prospect of anything other than an early death ... unless charities like Let The Children Live! get to them first. That's why our preventative work is so important, and our contacts with the street working children so vital, for that is when many children first appear on the streets - as street workers. Of course, we also work with the more hardened street children who form the galladas, but the most we can probably do here is to try and get the little ones away from the group before it's too late.

It was a salutory experience, and one I'm not particularly proud of, but it does serve to illustrate two important points, that's why I've told it to you: that in some people's minds these children really are completely 'disposable'; and that preventative work like ours is absolutely vital.

Pauline Allen visits Colombia at her own expense, in order to speak on behalf of the Charity from personal experience.

Our New Schools' Pack

Our Secondary School Resource Pack - 'The Disposable Ones' - on the Street-Children of Colombia is now available, written by teacher Pauline Allen, and Let The Children Live! Director, Fr Peter Walters, with illustrations by Jane Taylor.

• Detailed lesson plans
• Students’ photocopiable Background/Activity sheets
• 10 A4 full colour photographic posters
• Street Life! (board game)
• Audio cassette
• Activities to suit varying abilities
• Printed in Colombia by former street-children

• Suitable for age 14+ (Keystage 4)
• Designed for GCSE, Unit Accreditation and non-exam work
• Suitable for use in Religious Education or Humanities
• First-hand information from Colombia, with interviews and case histories

The Disposable Ones has been produced in response to many requests from schools. Its aim is to help teachers to give their students a clear understanding of the plight of streetchildren, particularly in Colombia. As they learn about the lives these children lead, and discuss such related issues as suffering, human relationships, justice and poverty, students will be challenged to consider their own attitudes, values and beliefs.

The material has been designed to help hard-pressed Religious Education teachers, whose students may have a preconception of the subject as being boring and irrelevant. The Disposable Ones shows that Religious Education can be interesting, relevant and stimulating for students of all abilities.

The Disposable Ones includes a wealth of general background material whilst focusing on the specific situation of the gamines of Colombia where the plight of such 'disposable' children is seen in its starkest form. The pack presumes no previous specialist knowledge on the part of the teacher and adopts a cross-curricula approach.

SSSK - Students Support Street Kids

by Jonathan Glennie

I worked as a volunteer with Let The Children Live! for six months in 1995. I finally had the chance to return to Medellín last summer. It was a wonderful opportunity to see many friends again, including both the Educators, and the children.

In 1995 I had lived in Don Bosco City and I divided most of my time between the boys who lived there, mostly ex-street children, and the children who were still on the street, but went to the Patio in the city-centre during the day. I would help out with the many activities, both educational and recreational, as well as just chat and kick around a football, getting to know the kids better. Actually, what they used to love most was when I sang along to English songs on the radio, but that's another story.

It was wonderful, when I returned last year, to see that lots of the children who had originally come to our sessions, were still regulars. After the initial uncertainty - the children hadn't seen me for years! - I reminisced with them about the old times, and was inspired to hear of their progress since I had last seen them. The impact that the project had had on some of them was obvious. The very fact that many were now attending school was testimony to the impressive work of Fr Peter, Jose, Luis Eduardo and all the Educators, over the last three years.

One thing that Street Educators in Colombia have got tragically used to is the murder of the children with whom they work. I didn't think, when I said goodbye to the kids in 1995 that I would never see some of them again: Lobo, 'the Wolf', whose brother is still on the street though very ill, had already been dead for two years when I arrived last summer; Luis Mesa, who was my 'Profe' (teacher) because he would help me with my rusty Spanish, had been shot only a couple of months before; Patcho, who had given a rose to my girlfriend on Valentine's Day, was chopped to death with a machete in Cartagena, on the north coast of Colombia. The list, sadly, goes on. It is in their memory, and for the sake of others who still have a chance, that Let The Children Live! continues its crucial work.

In Autumn 1997 a friend and I set up a charity called Students Supporting Street Kids (SSSK) to raise money for street children around the world, particularly those in Medellín. It has two branches - one in Cambridge and one in Oxford. The idea behind it is that university students in the UK, who are privileged to enjoy an extremely good education, can help some of the poorest children in the world to obtain that same right. Through a combination of raffles, writing to colleges and chapels, sponsored silences and 'bar raids', SSSK has raised over £5000 in its first year and a half, of which £2000 has been donated to Let The Children Live!

If anyone at any university is interested in getting involved, and even setting up their own branch of SSSK, please contact Jonathan Glennie at:

1 Madrid Road Barnes
London
SW13 9PF
Tel/fax: 0181 741 3870
e-mail: jonathanglennie@hotmail.com

VIVANT! in Spanish

A Spanish language edition of VIVANT! is now available. Published in Colombia we hope to make the work of Let The Children Live! known and supported through this new venture.

You can't take it with you...

The ancient Egyptians thought you could. They sent their elite into the next world complete with material possessions and slaves... no wonder they needed to build the pyramids! Our possessions; our goods and chattels; our money... in the end we have to go and leave them behind, because, as we all know, you can't take it with you. Can you?

Maybe you can though. For that, you’ll have to do two things: first, realise what money really is and second, make a Will. How can you know what your money will achieve after your death? How can you be certain it will be used as you would wish? Only by making a Will. Then you can say exactly what you want done with your hard-earned cash. It's not surprising that many people who support Charities during their lifetime, also choose to do so after their death, by leaving them a legacy. Legacies are an important part of a Charity's income, but they’re also a way in which you, the legator, can share in its work long after your time in this world is over.

Let's say that you were to leave a bequest to this Charity. Your money would be used to help street-children in Colombia; to offer them the chance of escaping from the violence, crime and misery of the streets, where only death awaits them. It could give them a new life, where they would receive love, care, education and the chance to have 'life in all its fullness'. By virtue of the fact that it would be your money that would be making this possible, you would still be part of Let The Children Live!

So will you think about it? Think about making a Will and about remembering the street-children of Colombia and Let The Children Live!'s work with them? What follows is a form of bequest that you might wish to use:

You could, after your death, do immense good for these children, and isn't that about as good a way as any of 'taking it with you'?