STREET
CHILDREN CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED IN COSTA RICA
The international
campaign "Don't Call Me Street Kid.."
was recently launched in Costa Rica by Casa
Alianza and the National Children League (PANI).
The Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
sponsors the campaign, which has already been
launched in nine Latin American countries.
Bruce Harris,
Regional Director of Casa Alianza, Damaris
Alvarado Canes of the Board of directors of the
PANI and Bertus Meins, representative of the IADB
in Costa Rica, presented the messages and
fundamental objectives of the campaign, which aims
to make society more conscious of the difficulties
in the lives of children who live and work in the
streets. Homeless children are children just like
any other child. The campaign will run until the
end of February 2003.
"To touch the
conscience of the public and to change their
vision of the children condemned to live in the
street is the first stage in the fight against
this social phenomenon that does not have to
be", Harris said. "Although the PANI has
the responsibility to take care of marginalized
children, it is also the responsibility of the
whole of society".
147.000 children in
Costa Rica have to work to survive; 280.000
children of school age are not in to school. In
the first semester of 2002, the PANI received
11,782 complaints of child abuse.
Through the public
transportation system; radio, television, the
message "No boy or girl must have to live on
the streets", will be spread throughout Costa
Rica. On Tuesday, December 17th, Harris and Rosalνa
Gil, Minister for Children and Adolescence, will
distribute stickers to taxi drivers in the
Monumental Radio program of Carlos Vetetta,
"the Taxi driver's Club".
For more
information and to obtain an information package
on the campaign, please communicate in Costa Rica
at 253-5439 or
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