What is a street child?
A street child is classified as "a child that lives and works on the streets" (not a child that works on the streets and returns home in the evening).
How do children end up on the streets in Puerto Vallarta?
Children end up on the streets for many different reasons – however, the most common reason is extreme poverty.
The children of Puerto Vallarta’s poorer areas are particularly likely to become street children. As many as ten people live in single room houses, which are made from collected refuse (e.g. bits of wood, metal, plastic and tin). If a family is fortunate enough to own a piece of land, they will build a brick house paying for the bricks one by one until the house is finished; this can take several generations. Consequently three generations are often living together, with perhaps only one member of the extended family working to support the entire household. If the income is the minimum wage (the vast majority earn less than the official minimum wage) of $43 pesos for an eight hour shift (£2.20 or £13.23 a week), it is impossible for the family to afford anything other than basic food such as beans and rice. Education for the children becomes cost prohibitive (the price of school shoes for a primary school child is $350 pesos, which represents more than a week’s salary). If a family member is an alcoholic or drug user then the situation deteriorates as there is no money for food. At this point children are sent out to beg or work on the streets for survival.
Children may start begging on the streets or become ‘working children’ (see separate section). Once on the streets, even if they are returning home at night, the children are easy targets for drug dealers, pimps for child prostitution and organ theft. The transformation from a child working on the streets, to becoming a ‘Street Child’ is diminutive. Drug dealers often give the children free ‘crack’ for a short period of time. During this period they fail to return home in the evenings and when their parents find them they are unable to deal with the drug dependent child’s behaviour. Once dependent on the drugs, the dealers will use the children as ‘child dealers’ or put them into the paedophile rings. The children do not receive any financial reward for these activities, but are provided with more drugs to support their habit. The horrific cycle continues until either the child is able to escape and enter the Rehabilitation Centre, or until they die.
With Puerto Vallarta offering one of Central America’s largest tourist locations the horrendous reality is that there are paedophiles only too eager to take advantage of these street children Paedophiles travel specifically to a location to exploit children, and unfortunately Puerto Vallarta is a destination dealing with this issue.
How do the children reach the Rehabilitation Centre?
When the children reach the streets of Puerto Vallarta they are normally picked-up by the police and brought to the Centre. In addition the managers from the ‘Working Children’, ‘Children At Risk’, and ‘Street Children’ programmes patrol the streets regularly, at night, talking to the children and when necessary bringing them into the Centre. All street children are then taken into the legal custody of Child Protection Services.
NLM Involvement with the Albergue Vida Nueva.
Philippa Vernon-Powell, Board Director and Field Director for New Life Mexico lives in Puerto Vallarta.
“While working in the Centre as a volunteer in 2002, two individuals gave me the inspiration to help the boys and then go on to establish New Life Mexico. On my first day, I met Ivan, who was working as a careworker in the Centre. Ivan worked on a day-to-day basis with me, until December 2007, to enable us to support the children. I will always be grateful to him for his inspiration and making this all possible for New Life Mexico. The second individual was a 14 year old boy who made me understand how important our involvement was by sharing his own experiences with me. He is now in his twenties and doing his best to address adult life – a job made simpler thanks to the support of New Life Mexico."
The first facility opened six months before Philippa and subsequently New Life Mexico were involved. It was extremely basic and lacked many fundamental day-to-day items. Initial funds were raised to assist with the purchase of most of these necessities from kitchen utensils, plates and glasses to an industrial fridge & freezer, bedding, mattresses etc….
Since 2005 the Centre moved to a new purpose-built facility paid for by DIF Jalisco. The new facility has capacity for 40 boys and consists of five dormitories, a schoolroom, a television room, a kitchen with dining facility, laundry, bathrooms, a psychology office and two offices for the careworkers and office manager.
The Centre Manager and careworkers’ role is to encompass all the needs of the child as the Centre is their home and family for the foreseeable future. Thus all the parental duties, such as parent meetings, school activity support, sports tournaments etc. fall under their domain for all the children. In addition, health, sports and recreational activities need to be incorporated, and still leave time for each child to feel that they receive some ‘personal time’ with him. This job is extremely demanding and emotionally draining. Through its groundwork, New Life Mexico shares this workload and thus has regular day-to-day contact with the children it is supporting.
Education then becomes the principal focal point. The number of years the child has spent on the street will relate to how the education process will commence. The younger children (under the age of twelve) can normally reintegrate into the public school system, albeit that they may be one or two grades behind. If the child is older he cannot normally re-enter the public school system, and needs to enrol in a ‘rapid school’ (crammer school).
DIF has limited funds for education and therefore New Life Mexico heavily focuses on financially supporting the children to return to school by paying the school fees, parent’s association fees, uniforms, shoes, school supplies, sports equipment, lunches and bus money. In addition the older children need private tuition to assist with their homework and project work, which New Life Mexico supports.
All the children returning to school are eager to achieve good results as they are only too aware how an education can change their life with regards to future employment. As one child said after entering the Centre “there is nothing worse than what I have experienced, the only thing lower is to be dead”. There is no need to explain to them how their life will be if they are unable to finish school and be unemployable. New Life Mexico strictly monitors the children’s progress at school.
Day to day schooling: Those children in the normal school system are in large classrooms (up to 35 in primary, 40 in secondary, 60 in high school) and therefore have difficulty with concentration, sometimes needing to go over the day’s lessons in more detail with the private tutor. All the children have daily homework.
Sometimes the children have to wait until a new school term or year begins before they can attend. When there are several months to wait, New Life Mexico will fund computer courses and English lessons (with Puerto Vallata heavily dependent on international tourism) for the older boys. School not only provides an education but also enables the children to integrate with their peer group in normal childhood activities in the classroom and playground.
Out of school activities: At the weekends and during holiday periods the children have very little to do and get restless without the routine of school. The children therefore carry out projects that supplement their education with other related activities. These include environmental projects such as turtle conservation - where they attend a programme to learn about the life cycle of turtles and how to conserve these endangered species. New Life Mexico supports these activities financially.
Sports activities are arranged on Saturdays and recreational activities on Sundays - when they go hiking/running in the mountains and/or to the local beaches/rivers. New Life Mexico supports the sports activities by purchasing sports equipment, kit and shoes, which would otherwise not be available to the children.
Responsibilities: As in any family environment, the children have to do cleaning and chores entrusted by the careworkers, as well as sport and school activities. In addition they continue to attend workshops on life issues, health, hygiene, anger management etc. Sport is incorporated into each child’s day, not only for physical activity but also to relieve anger and stress. The children play football and volleyball. Boxing is supervised at all times by a careworker.
Clothes are needed for the children; most of these are second hand donations from the local community. New Life Mexico purchases, or receives donations, for the children new clothes for their birthday and for Christmas. If at other times clothes, particularly underwear, socks and swimming trunks, are needed for the children New Life Mexico will also purchase these items.
Health & Medical: In addition to education, New Life Mexico passionately believes that health and medical care is paramount. New Life Mexico has a mature medical programme for the boys.
Pamela Thompson of Health Care Resource Centre set-up the programme for us four years ago. Dr Arias from Intermedica looks after the children at Secondaria and above. Dr Leti at Cornerstone Hospital is the paediatrician for the younger boys.
There is a large network of other doctors working for the children – for example three cardiologists, two orthopedic specialist, two ear nose and throat specialists. In addition, the emergency room doctors at Cornerstone tend to the broken bones and other issues.
All of these amazing people give their time for free; we are indebted to them all. We are grateful to Laboratorio De Patologia Clinica Vallarta and Diagnostico Integral Vallarta, who support us with a huge discount when we need lab work, x-rays, echocardiograms etc.
We have four children with special needs who require extra attention such as neurologist and therapy. DIF provides a nurse, to deal with the day to day issues with the boys. The children all visit the dentist. Many of the children arrive in the Centre never having used a toothbrush, and thus they have as many as 14-15 cavities each.
Dr Isabel, a paediatric dentist, and Clinica Dental Plaza Marina cares for all the boys. She gives us an enormous discount for her services.
There is a full-time psychologist at the Centre working with the younger boys, however, the older boys need more specialist attention and visit Dalila twice a month, and she too provides a huge discount for her services.
Changing these childrens’ lives is a slow and heartrending process. In addition to health and education, they need to learn to love and trust again. Rebuilding their dignity comes in many forms, playing sport, camping, and gardening, sharing a hug and feeling someone cares. New Life Mexico is committed to bringing hope of a better life to these children for as long as they are there and they will be there sadly, many of them, for years to come.