Through street outreach and community-based prevention, Kaya Children International is working directly with boys and girls who are starting to explore street life. Simple interventions, built on relationships, have the power to redirect children to healthy alternatives and a bright, happy and productive future.
Street life in Bolivia is sadly enough appealing to children who live in deep poverty, experience abuse, lack supervision and believe they have few options. Every day, there are new children starting to spend time engaged in street life. The new found freedom and friendships provide no indication of the hardships to come including drug dependencies, traffickers, the sex industry, crime, abuse and deep unexpected trauma.
When Kaya meets a child who is experimenting with street life, we act quickly. The child is offered a opportunity to spend time at the Kaya Center during the day. We also, with the child's permission, intervene in their family life to identify areas where assistance could help support and stabilize home life. Kaya also works with the public schools to identify children in high need and offer similar services. Children on the streets have fallen through the cracks, Kaya fills in these cracks.
One child may seem like a drop in the bucket against the epidemic that is street kids but each child is a family and each family is a community. Helping one child avoid street life offers hope and a solution to those far beyond our reach. Kaya plan to assist an additional 75 children at extreme high risk for long term street life in the next 12 months.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
