Within our mission Dreams Can Be Foundation strives to advocate on behalf of impoverished youth in Brazil. This page is an effort on our part to disseminate some of the information and research from the field of social work and related topics to interested parties. Though not comprehensive, we hope this page offers some valuable insights into the areas of Street Children, impoverished and at-risk youth in Brazil.

This page is intended to be a primer for individuals, volunteers and advisers beginning work with Dreams Can Be Foundation, journalists and students seeking basic information. We hope that it answers some of your questions and provides a jumping off point to people who would like to know more about the subject of impoverished youth in Brazil.

Resources for Further Research

I. Street children Brazil
II. Street children general
III. Children - Other Resources
IV. Writings on Non-Profits and Philanthropy in Brazil and Latin America
V. Favelas in Brazil

I. Street Children Brazil

Child Combatants in Armed Organized Violence in Rio de Janeiro
Luke Dowdney, British Anthropoligist and Founder of Luta Pela Paz
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Funded by the Ford Foundation, Save the Children Sweden and UNESCO, the report was the focus of a two-day international conference held in Rio de Janeiro in September of 2002 and has subsequently been published in book form.

The study discusses the disturbing fact that more young people below the age of 18 are killed by guns yearly in Rio de Janeiro than in many areas of the world formally at war. It finds strong similarities between children involved in drug wars in Rio's slums and child soldiers elsewhere in the world.

Social and Historical Approaches Regarding Street Children In Rio De Janeiro In The Context Of The Transition To Democracy
Gisalio Cerqueira Filho and Gizlene Neder, Universidade Federal Fluminense
Childhood, Feb 2001; 8: 11 - 29.
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This literature gives us insight into one of the unpaid social debts that is a legacy of Brazil's 1964-84 military dictatorship: the plight of street children. The discussion also takes into account Brazil's dire economic crisis of the late 1970s. The article employs an interpretative perspective that stresses sociological, historical and cultural factors, without disregarding the economic factors that affect generalized impoverishment. It also underscores the special circumstances of the political transition from military rule to a constitutional state. The first civil government was empowered in 1984 and a new national law for children and adolescents came into place in 1990. During this period (1984-90), antagonistic social and political forces struggled to enforce numerous projects, in an environment where repressive authoritarian strategies for social control (the police and the justice system) have clashed with democratic propositions for full-time schooling and social welfare policies.

Working Kids on Paulista Avenue
Prof. Martha K. Higgins, Department of Sociology, Union College, Schenectady, New York
Forthcoming in November 2004 issue of Childhood: An International Journal of Child Research.
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In six weeks of field research on fourteen poor youth who sell services or products on Sao Paulo, Brazil’s opulent Paulista Avenue, we explored their work, play, and aspirations, and childhood outcomes. Classifying the twelve youngest youth according to their work--as "squeegee" windshield washers or "sweets" candy and gum sellers--we describe their technologies, financial expenditures, earnings, and work lives. Comparing these twelve younger youth to the two older workers who supervised them, along with the few Brazilian longitudinal accounts of street youth, we seek to understand the longer-term prospects for young street workers. Placing our findings within two dominant theoretical contexts--the micro interactionist ‘new paradigm’ and the structural sociology perspective--we explore the relevance of these perspectives for poor youth in Brazil for understanding childhood and childhood's outcomes. We call for a theoretical interface between theories that focuses on the micro-interactionist actions that children use to shape and control their surroundings and the structural realities that limit such control.

Cruel Confinement: Abuses against Detained Children in Northern Brazil
Human Rights Watch Report, April 2003 Vol. 15, no. 1
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Children in northern Brazil are routinely beaten by police and detained in abusive conditions, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released in April 2003. Children face violence at the hands of other youths, are unnecessarily confined to their cells for lengthy periods of time, and often do not receive the schooling to which the Brazilian constitution entitles them. Brazil is a federation of states, much like the United States, and each state controls its own juvenile detention system. But the federal government has a key role in enforcing the national juvenile justice law. And the federal government can condition its funding of state juvenile detention systems on their compliance with human rights norms. Human Rights Watch's 63-page report, Cruel Confinement: Abuses Against Detained Children in Northern Brazil, is based on interviews with 44 detained youth, as well as dozens of additional interviews with government officials, lawyers, social workers, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations. Human Rights Watch inspected a total of 17 detention facilities, including four girls' detention center, in the states of Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Rondônia, and Pará. Police beatings during and after arrest are common, the report found. Such abuses often occur at police stations, where Brazilian law allows children to be held for up to five days while they await transfer to a juvenile detention facility. In rural areas, where police routinely violate the five-day limit on detention in police lockups, children are at greater risk of police abuse.

Children in the Streets of Brazil: Drug Use, Crime, Violence, and HIV Risks
James A. Inciardi and Hilary L. Surratt
Substance Use and Misuse, 1997
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Estimates suggest that between 7 and 8 million children, ages 5 to 18, live and/or work on the streets of urban Brazil. Widespread abuse of inhalants, marijuana, cocaine, Valium, and alsoca paste is common among street children. Risk of exposure to HIV is rapidly becoming an area of concern because of the large number of street youths engaging in unprotected sexual acts, both remunerated and non-remunerated. Because of their drug use, predatory crimes, and general unacceptability on urban thoroughfares, Brazilian street children are frequently the targets of local vigilante groups, drug gangs, and police "death squads." Although there have been many proposals and programs for addressing the problems of Brazilian street youth, it would appear that only minimal headway has been achieved.

Music, Dancing and a National Policy are Challenging Violence in Brazil
Claudia Jurberg, Rio de Janeiro
Bulletin of the World Health Organization [0042-9686] yr: 2002 volume: 80 issue: 10 pg: 840
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Through music, dance, and a national policy, children can choose alternatives to a life of violence. Includes statistics and testimonials. This article argues that many organizations have been successful in reaching at-risk youth through different art forms and self-expression.

Child Prostitution on the Rise in Brazil
Selma B. de Oliveira
International Child Resource Center, 1995
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This article discusses how prostitution of girls in Brazil is the direct consequence of years of economic recession, and the low status afforded to women in the country. It describes the prostitution industry, and shows how child prostitutes make much of their profit from tourism. Finally, it gives an example of an NGO in Recife that provides a safe refuge for prostitutes.

Characterization of Street Children in João Pessoa, Brazil
Carla Maciel, Suerde Brito and Leoncino Camino, Universidade da Paraíva,
Psicologia: Reflexão e Critica. vol.10 n.2 Porto Alegre 1997
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This paper describes street children in João Pessoa, Brazil. Participants were 31 boys, 12 to 17 years old, who were interviewed on the streets. All of them were performing some remunerated activity in the informal work-market on the streets. The results showed the existence of a great valorization of working, which starts because of socioeconomic family needs, and little valorization of delinquent acts. The results also showed that these children have a strong desire to study. They believe that studying would be one of the means through which they could become rich. However, because the need to work is one of the factors that prevent them from going to school, it becomes a hindrance to finding qualified jobs later on.

Street-children and Inter-American Development Bank: Lessons from Brazil.
Ricardo Moran and Claudio de Moura Castro
Inter-American Development Bank, Social Development Division, Sustainable Development Department, 1997. Washington DC
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This discussion paper is the result of an IDB-sponsored workshop in Terezopolis, Brazil in 1995. It gives a brief history of how the state has dealt with street children in Brazil. The paper gives advice and recommendations on the types of programs the IDB and other international organizations should support. It also gives some examples of current successful preventative programs in place in Brazil.

From Street Children to all Children: Improving the Opportunities of Low Income Urban Children and Youth in Brazil
Rizzini, I. Barker, G. & Cassaniga,
N. 2002. In Youth in cities. A Cross-National Perspective. Edited by Marta Tienda and Wiliam Julius Wilson, Cambridge University Press: UK, 2002.
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This paper advocates for a shifted focus to include the needs of all children and youth. Many of the experiences of programs and advocacy organizations working with street children have provided important directions in what needs to be done with and for all children and youth in Brazil. One important step is to learn from their experiences to understand more fully both the potentials and the needs of children and youth in Brazil and what kinds of supports and activities should be offered. In that sense, the case studies presented here offer an indication of the kinds of initiatives in developmental supports that should be made known and supported.

Kids Out of Place
Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Daniel Hoffman, UCLA
NACLA Report on the Americas, May/June 1994
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This article describes the life of street children in Brazil, and how they are being increasingly marginalized from Brazilian society. Along with this, there is a discussion of children’s rights violations. The authors analyze the effectiveness of legal reforms that have been put in place in the last few decades.

Brazil: Children in Drug Trafficking: A Rapid Assessment
Dr. Jailson de Souza e Silva
Dr. André Ulani
International Labour Organization (ILO), International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) February 2000, Geneva, Switzerland
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The central subject of this Rapid Assessment is to investigate the Worst Forms of Child Labour is the involvement of children in the drug-trafficking business in low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro (favelas). This study seeks to explain the variables of why children enter and take part in this activity.

Life Trajectories of Children and Adolescents Living on the Streets of Rio de Janeiro.
Irene Rizzini and Udi Mandel Butler
The International Center for Research and Policy on Childhood (CIESPI) Spring, 2003
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The paper presents some of the research findings from a study of street children in Rio de Janeiro which was undertaken by the authors together with a team of street educators. The paper highlights the children's life trajectories in terms of their own perceptions and representations and addresses key themes, such as the family, the process for going to the street and their day-to-day living on the street. It discusses relationships with regard to the formation of groups and children's interaction with adults on the street, and the processes of identity formation on the street, which includes the perception of self and of others. The children's perceptions of the positive and negative aspects of the street and their hopes for the future are discussed.

Life Going Down the Drain: Street Boys' Living Alternatives
Maria Dilma Siqueira, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande Do Norte
In Estudo de Psicologicia (Natal), Jan./June 1997, vol.2, no.1, p.161-174. ISSN 1413-294X.
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In order to explain how the delinquent behavior of Brazilian juveniles is developed, the conditions of socialization and resocialization of 116 institutionalized boys, in Natal-RN, were investigated. The discourses of 17 subjects were analyzed. The adolescent inmate conditions of socialization have been marked with poverty and dereliction. Delinquent behavior starts as a survival strategy. The discourse of subjects reproduces the dominant ideology when they assess themselves negatively and input their delinquent behavior to their own personal characteristics. Trajectory of life of 17 subjects ten years after their internment, confirms the inefficiency of the programs of socialization. The analysis of the broader social context shows that juvenile delinquency roots are found in the over exploitation of the lower classes by the capitalist accumulation model prevalent in Brazil.


Brazilian Street Children, Substance Abuse and Delinquency
Giselle T. Fernandes, University of Pittsburgh - School of Social Work
Spring, 2006
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This paper reviews the socioeconomic and political context of street children in Brazil.
It describes interrelated causal perspectives of becoming a street child, including poverty internal migration and the phenomenon of growing favelas (Brazilian slums) as reasons for the large number of children on/of the street. The historical aspects of children’s labor in Brazil and the street as a workplace are also taken into account.
Delinquency is explained from a socio-dynamic perspective and as a social learning process. Substance use is discussed as being an apparatus for delinquency, and as a tool for survival. The implementation of policies regarding street children, comprising programs for preventing substance use and delinquency are still missing political and infrastructural support. There is a lack of studies and publications about street children - correlation of substance use and delinquency, in Brazilian scientific literature. This scarcity reflects and reinforces the social avoidance, blindness and stereotypes about street children.

II. Street Children General

Neither War Nor Peace
international comparisons of children and youth in organized armed violence
Luke Dowdney, anthropologist
(A study in ten countries)
May, 2005
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Executive Co-ordinator Luke Dowdney

General Co-ordination Viva Rio
ISER (Instituto de Estudos da Religião)
IANSA (International Action Network on Small Arms)

Financial Sponsors: Save the Children Sweden • Ford Foundation • DFID – Department for International Development • World Vision • CasaAlianza

As the title of this publication states, the phenomenon of youngsters engaged in organized armed violence is not the same as our general understanding of “war” – but it is even further away from our general understanding of “peace”. In several regions of the world, the level of insecurity related to this problem is making youth violence one of the top priorities on government agendas. Special measures are being considered particularly in order to repress youth gangs— some of these conflicting with basic international standards and the advances made since the Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified. As this report shows, the search for quick and repressive answers to this deeply complex problem may aggravate the current situation.

The situation is complicated. To act without an understanding of the risk factors behind this violence may be ineffective and sometimes dangerous. This study brings us the personal life stories of gang members, giving insight on their influences, motivations and fears. Such insight is too often overlooked in broad policy strokes and political rhetoric.

Excerpted from the Foreword by Paulo Pinheiro, Independent Expert, UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence Against Children

Nem Guerra Nem Paz
(Comparações internacionais de crianças e jovens em violência armada organizada)
Luke Dowdney, antropólogo
-Um estudo em dez paises
Maio, 2005
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Coordenador Executivo Luke Dowdney

Coordenador Geral Viva Rio
ISER (Instituto de Estudos da Religião)
IANSA (International Action Network on Small Arms)

Apoio Financeiro: Save the Children Sweden • Ford Foundation • DFID – Department for International Development • World Vision • CasaAlianza

Como o título desta publicação indica, o fenômeno dos jovens engajados na violência armada organizada não corresponde ao nosso entendimento geral de “guerra” — mas está além da nossa compreensão geral de “paz”. Em algumas regiões do mundo, os níveis de insegurança relacionados a esse problema estão tornando a violência juvenil uma das prioridades máximas na agenda dos governos. Medidas especiais estão sendo consideradas, em especial, a fim de reprimir as gangues de jovens; algumas delas entram em conflito com os padrões internacionais básicos e os avanços feitos desde que a Convenção sobre os Direitos das Crianças foi ratificada. Como este relatório mostra, a busca de soluções rápidas e repressivas para esse problema de profunda complexidade pode agravar a situação atual.

Essa situação é complicada. Agir sem entender os fatores de risco por detrás dessa violência pode ser inútil e algumas vezes perigoso. Este estudo traz as histórias pessoais de vida dos membros de gangue, oferecendo vislumbres de influências, motivações e medos. Esses vislumbres são, com muita freqüência, ignorados por investidas políticas amplas e pela própria retórica política.

Trecho retirado do prefácio escrito por Paulo Pinheiro, Consultor Independente, Estudo sobre Violência contra Crianças do Secretário-Geral da ONU

Street Children, Human Rights and Public Health: A Critique and Future Directions
Catherine Panter-Brick
October, 2002 Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, Durham, UK
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This review presents a critique of the academic and welfare literature on street children in developing countries, with supporting evidence from studies of homelessness in industrialized nations. The turn of the twenty-first century has seen a sea of change of perspective in studies concerning street youth. This review examines five stark criticisms of the category "street child" and of research that focuses on the identifying characteristics of a street lifestyle rather than on the children themselves and the depth or diversity of their actual experiences. Second, it relates the change of approach to a powerful human rights discourse- the legal and conceptual framework provided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child - which emphasizes children's rights as citizens and recognizes their capabilities to enact change in their own lives. Finally, this article examines literature focusing specifically on the risks to health associated with street or homeless lifestyles. Risk assessment that assigns street children to a category "at risk" should not overshadow helpful analytical approaches focusing on children's resilience and long-term career life prospects. This review thus highlights some of the challenging academic and practical questions that have been raised regarding current understandings of street children.

Monitoring and Evaluation of a Street Children Project

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This handbook is complementary to the Street Children Training package produced in the year 2000. The Monitoring and Evaluation handbook is designed to be used by street educators, as well as other people working with street children. It aims to provide the user with an understanding of the importance of monitoring and evaluating a street children project, identify a wide range of appropriate strategies for this and consequently the development of confidence to implement monitoring and evaluation activities.

III. Children other resources

Convention on the Rights of the Child
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland
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On November 20, 1989 the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a landmark for human rights. Here for the first time was a treaty that sought to address the particular human rights of children and to set minimum standards for the protection of their rights. It is the only international treaty to guarantee civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely accepted human rights treaty - of all the United Nations member states, only the United States and the collapsed state of Somalia have not ratified it. The United States continues to lead a defensive action against Children's Human Rights lobbying against further measures designed to protect children - most recently against efforts to stop the use of child soldiers.

These last 10 years have seen an enormous growth in awareness of children's rights. Activists have learned important lessons in successfully implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child. One of the Convention's key strengths is that it recognizes that rights must be actively promoted if they are going to be enforced - awareness isn't enough. Although children's human rights are still a long way from realization - we have a powerful tool for campaigning for the protection of children's human rights in the almost worldwide acceptance of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Brazil ratified the convention on September 24, 1990.

Perfil das Crianças de 0 a 6 anos que frequentam Creches, Pre-escolas e Escolas: um analise dos resultados da Pesquisa sobre Padrões de Vida/IGBE
Maria Dolores Bombardelli Kappel, Maria Christina Carvalho, Sonia Kramer.
This paper first gives data on children attending pre-schools in Brazil, and then analyzes the data using various theories about the correlation between attending pre-school and the child’s future.
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The World Bank's View of Early Childhood
Helen Penn, University of East London
Childhood, Feb 2002; 9: 118 - 132.
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This article explores the World Bank's view of early childhood as an example of the globalization of childhood. It argues that the Bank pursues neoliberal economic policies that exacerbate the gap between rich and poor nations and between the rich and poor within countries. These policies affect children's lives adversely, but they are legitimized by the Bank in a variety of ways. The Bank claims to have children's interests at heart, and identifies early childhood as a fruitful site for interventions. It draws on traditional Anglo-American notions of family, community and childhood in its justification for these interventions. The article explores the inherent contradictions in these policies towards young children.

The Historical Development of the Child Welfare System in Latin America: An Overview
Francisco J Pilotti, Organization of American States/Inter-American Children's Institute, Washington DC, USA
Childhood, Vol. 6, No. 4, 408-422 (1999)
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Using the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a powerful advocacy tool, the children's rights movement in Latin America has accomplished significant advances in the promotion of children's entitlements and welfare over the last decade. Specifically, there has been a measure of success in advancing legal reforms aimed at adjusting domestic laws to the standards set forth in the Convention. However, the recognition of formal entitlements in the new legislations has not been accompanied by a comparable improvement in service provision to the children of the poorer sectors of society, which constitute the vast majority of youngsters in this region. To a great extent, this lag can be explained by the structural constraints that limit the pace of reforms within the welfare state apparatus in developing economies, the legacies of past institutional arrangements and the contradictory ideological undercurrents present in the social construction of childhood in societies characterized by profound class cleavages. From this perspective, this article attempts to provide historical clues for the understanding of some of the challenges faced by most present-day child welfare systems in Latin America.

Research with Children: The Same or Different From Research With Adults?
Samantha Punch, University of Stirling
Childhood, Vol. 9, No. 3, 321-341 (2002)
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This article explores seven methodological issues in some detail to illustrate the ways in which aspects of the research process usually considered to be the same for both adults and children can pose particular dilemmas for adult researchers working with children. It argues that research with children is potentially different from research with adults mainly because of adult perceptions of children and children's marginalized position in adult society but least often because children are inherently different. Drawing on classroom-based research carried out in rural Bolivia, the advantages and disadvantages of using five task-based methods (drawings, photographs, PRA [participatory rural appraisal] techniques, diaries and worksheets) are highlighted in order to illustrate how such research techniques often thought to be suitable for use with children can be problematic as well as beneficial.

Interviewing Children. A Guide for Journalists and Others
Sarah McCrum and Lotte Hughes
Save the Children UK (Jan 1998)
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Here you will find a comprehensive excerpt from a book published by Save the Children from their website; with basic information about interviewing children and information on how to order the book.

Editorial: Globalization and Children
Irene Rizzini
Childhood, Nov 2002; 9: 371 - 374.
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This short editorial defines "globalization" and analyzes its effects on children around the world. Rizzini goes on to advise child researchers on the extent to which their studies should be influenced by this powerful new phenomenon.

EFA Global Monitoring Report 2005: The Quality Imperative
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The Report, which monitors progress towards the six Education for All goals set by over 160 countries at the World Education Forum in Dakar (2000), finds that significant efforts are being made to increase resources, broaden access to school and improve gender parity. However, exhaustive analysis of research data shows that the quality of education systems is failing children in many parts of the world, and could prevent many countries from achieving Education for All by the target date of 2015.

A Brazil fit for children
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The purpose of this report is to provide support for monitoring the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals as they relate to children and adolescents in Brazil in the coming years, and to imbue the dialogue between Brazilian society and the Government with greater transparency and, at the same time, enable the international community to monitor compliance with the goals enunciated in the United Nation’s document entitled “A World Fit for Children” (WFFC).

Prepared by the Child Friendly Monitoring Network (Rede de Monitoramento Amiga da Criança, hereinafter called Rede Amiga), the report focuses upon the four WFFC areas (health, education, protection, and HIV/AIDS) and aims to review initiatives and assess the resources that Brazilian Government will need to invest in order to achieve these goals. It seeks to provide a benchmark for a monitoring process that is to continue up until 2010, through the production of reports relating to the progress that Brazil has achieved and its prospects of meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

IV. Writings on Non-Profits and Philanthropy in Brazil and Latin America

A Promesa do Terceiro Setor
Andres Pablo Falconer
Centro de Estudos em Administração do Terceiro Setor, Universidade de São Paulo, 2000.
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This article explains the history behind the formation of "the third sector" abroad and in Brazil. The author first describes the motivations and ideas behind the formation of the Third Sector, and then explains the reasons for this sector’s fragility in Brazil and why it is having difficulty acheiving its expectations.

A Iniciativa Privada e O Espitiritu Publico: Um retrato da ação social das empresas do Sudeste brasileiro
Anna Maria T. Medeiros Peliano, Coord.
Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada. Brasilia, Março 2000
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This document is the summary of results of a research project that investigated the situation of corporate social action in the South-Eastern part of Brazil. It looks at which companies participated in social action and their motivations behind it. Some interesting findings include that most companies prefer to donate locally, with a preference for children’s organizations. For research results on areas of Brazil other than the Southeast, more information is available at: http://www.ipea.gov.br/asocial/

Philanthropy as Social Investment: Trends and Perspectives of Philanthropy in Brazil
Renato de Paiva Guimarães- Director of Communications of the Associação Projeto Roda Viva Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The City University of New York’s Center for the Study of Philanthropy, 1996
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If nonprofit organizations intend to be a counterpart of government and the market, they need to pay attention to questions of transparency, visibility, and accountability. Most of all it is important to maintain professional contact with the media, and with representatives from government and business. Despite the apparently limited funds that currently go to the nonprofit sector in Brazil, local funding may increase as the economy stabilizes. Nonprofit organizations need to be open to new trends as the sector grows.

Brazilians Not Taking Advantage of Tax Incentives
Eduardo Szazi, Daniela Pais and Rebecca Raposo
Alliance Extra ‐ September 2004
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Existing tax incentives for donations to social and cultural projects are underused in Brazil. This is one of the main findings of research recently released by the Group of Institutes, Foundations and Enterprises (GIFE) and funded by the Ford Foundation. The research was primarily concerned with non-profit legislation in Brazil, but involved comparing this with the corresponding regimes in the United States, Europe and some other Latin American countries (Argentina and Mexico) in order to see if lessons from them could be used as the basis for an improved legal framework for non-profits in Brazil.

A Challenge for the Monster: New Directions in Latin American Philanthropy
Andrés Thompson
ReVista Harvard Review on Latin America
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Giving and Volunteering in the Americas From Charity to Solidarity, Spring 2002
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Writing from a historical perspective with regard to the issues facing the 3rd sector today; the author suggests that the battle for non-profits is not over and advocates for continuous learning and experimentation by nonprofit organizations.

"The main challenge at this time is to more forcefully advocate the convening of the forces of social change. Increased local giving and expanded volunteerism are good in themselves but insufficient to provoke the desired and needed changes in the distribution of wealth. Stronger voices and leadership are also part of the menu." Speaking of nonprofit action, public policy and the private sector Thompson brings along with his very credible professional background some important points to be pondered and perhaps set in action in order to solve today’s social issues.



V. Favelas in Brazil

Brazilian responses to violence and new forms of mediation: the case of the Grupo Cultural AfroReggae and the experience of the project "Youth and the Police"
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