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Another Chance
The prize of returning home
Experience shows that it is possible to reunite children and adolescents living in the streets to their families.
X needed the pain of having his body burned by a fellow street child during the night while sleeping in the streets of Copacabana to give this 13 year old boy the impetus to return to the home of his family. The way back home, however, need not be so traumatic.
From the ages of 9 to 12, Leide Dana (today 15 years of age) ran away from home on a regular basis. Taking to the streets only to be driven to shelters where she would again escape and be yet again returned to the shelter. One such escapade lasted 7 months, while the whole time her Mother searched for her.
"I became a familiar face at the Juizado (childrens Court) and the shelters, as I was constantly searching for Daiana", said her mother a 50 year old housewife.
By this time Daiana had already visited 10 different shelters.
Our house where my Mom and my brothers lived was in a slum and 8 people shared one room. I preferred living in the streets. I never stole, but used to beg for money and search for cardboard on which to sleep. We were a group of 7 girls that were always together.
Making up for lost time
The attraction to the challenges of the streets only diminished when Daiana went to a shelter where she had the opportunity to participate in Art and Sports activities. During the 2 years that she spent there, she made the decision to begin spending weekends with her mother, after her Mother received a new home with the help of a habitat program, Daiana rejoined the family.
A Priority of the Secretary of Childhood
In a statement by the new Secretary of State for Childhood and Youth, Altineu Cort family reintegration will be a priority during her term.
No Prescriptions
As stated by Funda Sao Martinho coordinator, Athaide Bezerra, there is no prescription to rebuild a family. - It can take a week or a year. First, the child must want to return home. Sometimes he has been expelled by his community for drug dealing or drug use in the streets... Our experience with 4.000 boys, in 40% of the cases the reconnection works.
The Daily Fight to Stay With the Child
In August 2002, Ca Damiana, 38 and who works as a maid received a call advising her that her son, Danilo, 15, was at a shelter, after having been picked up in the street. She had not seen him for more than a year.
Learning to Live Together
This is when the family became part of the Family Reintegration Project of the NGO Terra dos Homens. Not only he, but his stepfather, his 3 brothers, and his grandfather needed to learn how to live together.
Juggling at the Traffic Lights Without His Mothers Knowledge
All afternoon at a light in Laranjeiras, Rio de Janeiro; Mauro, 13, once juggled to earn money from the passing cars.
Money in House
With a box of bootblack, Thiago, 16, left his home in Duque de Caxias in the afternoon, and headed for Center City and Copacabana. There he juggled until dawn for the tourists. His mother, Marilene Teixeira Xavier, 40, and stepfather, Josemilton Edson Teixeira, 35, unemployed, worried at home fearing that their son would not return the mother of the boy remembers.
One day his street colleagues took him to SMartinho Foundation where he took a shower and had a meal. He filled out a form while there and his family became included in a program for income generation at the institution. The son, his mother and stepfather and his sister are all learning to make knick knacks and have started a small business from their home.
It came along at just the right time, any longer and we would have surely lost him to the streets says Josemilton earnestly.
"I earned about R$ 20 a day and spent the money to buy cookies, play videogames", recounts the boy.
With eight other children to care for his mother Ieda Rosa de Oliveira, 34, a housewife was not distrusting of her sons after school activities. Not until the day that Kombi Foundation for Children and Youth (FIA) picked him up, 3 months ago. He did not return home that day and it was not until the next day at Central Reception at FIA that she found her son.
His family was invited to participate in the program "Escola de Pais (Parents School), which in addition to the psychological services provided to the parents and their children, offers handicraft, music and cooking classes et al. Leda has already learned to make Mosaics, and is planning a Cooking Cooperative with the friends that she made in her course. Along with his mother, his sisters and brothers also attend the school. They all like it so much that - if they could they would also attend on the weekends.
Their father, Mauro Ferreira de Azevedo a telephone operator, 46 years old, feels relieved: "We do not lose the control of the boys".
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He had been going to the streets since the age of 10 but he always came back home. I found him begging in the streets several times and carried him home in my arms. After so much time, I was afraid something really bad must have happened."
In order to accomplish this is to bring these children and their parents together and to teach and help the parents in the use of parenting skills.
Claudia Guimar, project manager of the NGO Terra dos Homens an organization with an 80% success rate in their actions on behalf of family reunification- explains that the main challenge is to convince the families that they are capable of taking care of their children. There are families that have survived so many losses that they begin to believe that the government is more qualified to take care of the children then they themselves are.
I continue to go to the shelter activities after school. Sometimes I miss the streets, but now I am okay alongside of my mom and my brothers. I want to make up for all the time I lost in the streets. affirms Daiana.
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