Our Mission

Back to the top

Our Motivation

Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of children and adolescents who spend the majority of their time on the streets is rising. The causes are complex, and there are no easy answers, no "quick fixes". Children whose families are unable to provide for their material, physical or emotional needs often end up on the streets. The root cause is poverty, which affects family stability and leads youngsters into low-paying jobs, petty theft, prostitution, or other survival strategies associated with the streets. Many of these kids are victims of abuse, exploitation and sometimes murder.

• In our daily conversations, children fitting this profile almost automatically cease to be considered regular kids. They are prescribed a category of their own. The familiar term, charged with negative connotations, is "street kid ". A "street kid" often becomes synonymous with "delinquent ","thief " or "drug addict ". For the most compassionate among us, the "street kid " as the "helpless victim " generates pity. The stigma associated with the term is so strong that it is easy to forget something essential: a "street kid " is simply a kid with unique talents and personal abilities who unfortunately lives in difficult circumstances.
  
  
• Rather than dwelling on the significance of the label "street kids", the Don't Call Me Street Kid! Campaign is promoting initiatives that secure basic needs and skills development of these children. In order to change preconceived notions about "street kids", the campaign highlights innovative approaches and programs which are enabling kids, families, schools and communities to reach their full potential.

Back to the top

Our History

Since the early 1990's, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved over sixty operations amounting to US$3.5 billion to support basic services (i.e sanitation, health, nutrition, early child care and development, pre-school, and education), with a broad focus on disadvantaged children and adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 1998 the Bank moved forward to develop an integrated strategy on Early Child Care and Development (ECCD) which set out a combination of preventive approaches to children needs, particularly to those at high social risk. For ECCD programs to succeed, the strategy recognized the need to complement on-going programs with communication strategies that would strengthen demand and awareness of effective social policies aimed at combating the problem.

Coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, IDB President Enrique V. Iglesias announced the need to launch a regional awareness campaign which would sensitize the public to the complex situation of the commonly known as "street children", but cast in a constructive light. Traditionally, these children have been perceived as either victims of their surroundings or threats to society. The challenge at hand was to change public perception, and present these children from the standpoint of their rich potential for incorporation into mainstream society.