Children's Rights:
The Street Children's Project
at São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil

The Methodist-sponsored Street Children's Project in São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil, celebrated its fifteenth anniversary in 1998. The original project--started in 1983 by a coalition of local Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic churches--was coordinated by Methodist pastor Zeni de Lima Soares.

São Bernardo do Campo is an industrial suburb of São Paulo, Brazil's largest city. In the early 1980s, children who were forced to live and work on the streets–owing to family economic hardship or to the absence of family altogether–had no access to city services. So the pastors of the three churches in São Bernardo do Campo "invaded" the streets, getting to know the children they passed by each day. They felt a calling for their churches to become involved in helping the street children discover their gifts and realize their potential. In consultation with the children, the pastors decided that they needed an office area where the children could meet and organize--a place that would create a point of contact between the churches and the children.

At this time in Brazil's history, businesses and shop owners were also organizing around the problem of street children. They saw children and youth as delinquents without families, perceiving the older ones as a physical threat. They believed that the presence of these young people on the streets outside their shops deterred middle-class people from shopping and thus threatened their businesses. As a consequence, some of them arranged for death squads, made up of hired mercenaries, to go out into the streets at night and kill the children.

Meanwhile, the pastors were contacting many churches in the area in an effort to find a space for the project--but without success. In 1987, the program lost six children, all murdered in one night. Over the course of the year, 37 children associated with the project were killed by death squads. Pastor Zeni de Lima Soares remained as the sole coordinator of the program. The pastors of the other churches seemed to feel that the project itself was all but dead.

But Pastor Zeni would not give up. She was invited to meetings by the United Methodist Women. She shared news of the project and of the loss of so many children with concerned Christians in the United States. Along with the National Council of Churches, the Women's Division of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries infused the project with financial support. By 1991, Soares found a building in which to open a street children's center.

Now the first group of children that the pastors began working with in 1983 have grown up. They have received an education and now have jobs and families, enabling them to give something back to the project. One of those street boys-- Marcos Antonio S. Souza, known with affection as "Marquinhos"--became the co- director of the center's programs in 1995, fulfilling Pastor Zeni's dream.

House: What are the rights of children under the law in Brazil?

Marquinhos: The new constitution, enacted in 1988, contains two articles that relate to the rights and protection of children. In 1986, Brazil was still emerging from years of military dictatorship into a free and democratic society. The São Bernardo do Campo program was part of the National Street Children's Network. Our project was not the only one in which children and those who worked with them were receiving death threats. The National Street Children's Network made it possible for us to send some of the children out of São Bernardo to other parts of Brazil in order to save their lives.

Until 1986, children and youth were excluded from participating in government and from having a voice in decisions that greatly affected their lives. But then, since new provisions were being added to the constitution to guarantee the rights of children and since a large national network had been formed, the government had to sit at the same table and listen to our concerns. As a youth, I participated in these first meetings. From our work with the two resolutions in the constitution came a new resolution that was passed into law in 1990 called the Statute on Children and Adolescents. As part of that statute, the government must now consult both children and adolescents before passing any laws that deal with children and youth.

Because of the economic situation in South America, children must work. The parents, not the children, should be earning the family's living. But we must deal with situations as they are, not as we would like them to be.

A key point for us at the center is to organize the children into groups so that they can discuss and analyze their rights under the law and work to make sure the government is complying. If the children and youth participate in society and can help develop the kind of society they want for themselves and their children, they will grow up as responsible adults.

House: What rights are the children guaranteed?

Marquinhos: Well, it is the same as the United States. [No rights are guaranteed to children in the Constitution of the United States –Ed.] Children have a basic right to life. They have the right to an education, health care, food, and shelter. They have a right to live with their family of birth or with the family of their choice if the birth family is not functional. They have a right to a place within their community. They have a right to develop skills so that they can assume a profession and provide for themselves and their families. In Brazil, if there is an accident or disaster, children must be the first to receive services. They have a right to a lawyer if they are arrested, and they have a right to expect the government to enforce the laws that protect them. They have basic human rights.

This is what it says on paper. But in actual life, it is quite different. In Brazil, we say that the churches have eaten up the law but now they must digest it. They agree that these are basic rights and that all children should have them, but how will they work to make these rights a reality in society?

House: What is the church's role in guaranteeing children's rights?

Marquinhos: The church must challenge society. It must be the agent that brings about change. It cannot proclaim that society should change and then do nothing to transform society.

House: How is the Street Children's Project in São Bernardo do Campo working for change?

Marquinhos: We have programs to educate the children, to bring them in off the street, to stimulate their creative thinking, and to develop their physical growth with activities such as dance and capoeira (a combination of dance and martial arts). We have daycare for working parents. We send groups of children to Camp Limpo Paulista to give them a chance to develop in a different environment. But we believe that each child is like a drop in a pool. If we follow the widening circles of ripples made by the drop, we will find other people and areas of life that need to be addressed. Behind every abandoned child is a family that has been abandoned by the government, the community, and the church.

When you travel in an airplane, they always say: "In case of emergency, the oxygen masks will drop." Parents are told to put on their own oxygen masks first so that they will have the ability to take care of their children. We feel that families want and need to take care of their children, but they aren't getting the oxygen. We can't just give the oxygen to the children and let the parents die.

So we work with the whole family. We have street educators. Some are staff, some volunteers, and some former street children of the program who now live and work as responsible citizens. We go home with the children. We find the families-- maybe living under a bridge or overpass, having made a home for themselves out of whatever they can find. If we can help them regain their dignity and increase their self-esteem, we can reunite the family so that they can care for their own children. We work with the parents on health issues and psychological issues. We provide referrals to drug- and alcohol-abuse programs. We put people into contact with government programs that can help them find housing and with advocacy groups.

House: How does the staff accomplish this?

Marquinhos: We have three levels of personnel. Our permanent staff consists of six to seven people. Then we have a larger group of about 50, made up of people from the community, many of them church members, who participate in the programs in any way we need. They volunteer as drivers, teachers, chaperons. Then there are about 30 volunteers who work very hard on specific projects. Some children who have grown up in the program return as volunteers.

House: Can you tell me about a specific project?

Marquinhos: We want the children and youth to come together to work on something important. A cultural icon in Brazil is the carnival preceding Lent. For a week, businesses and shops all over the country shut down and people come out and celebrate carnaval de rua–carnival in the streets. Groups perform dances and present skits.

Since 1992, we have formed the Bloco Eureca, an entry in the Carnaval of São Bernardo do Campo in which the children perform. The project demands a level of organization far beyond simply planning dance steps and costumes. The children themselves meet and plan what they will do. The accomplishment they feel with a successful performance really raises their self-esteem.

The community also looks at them differently. They are no longer ragged street children but a well-trained, beautifully costumed working ensemble that provides entertainment for more than 700 people. We want to teach children that they can be active participants in making their own life stories what they want them to be.

We work with 400 to 450 children in our center. But we are not just keeping them safe, protecting their physical integrity. We want them to live abundant lives, not merely to survive.

House: Has the situation improved for Brazil's children? Are they still threatened on the streets?

Marquinhos: The situation has improved, somewhat. There are still death threats, but they are not as intense as they once were. One thing that has helped is the outside recognition of the repression of children in Brazil. Once the president of Brazil was traveling in England, and there were protesters with large signs that read: "Brazil knows how to take care of its children: by killing them." It upset him to know what people in other countries thought of Brazil. This opens up the possibility of change.

The amnesty groups are also very important because they broadcast the abuses of human rights. International recognition and networking make it difficult for the government to repress the amnesty groups working within the country. There is now even a Human Rights Center. It is made up of small business associates coming together around the issue of human rights for children and youth.

This struggle is not just for the children, or the parents, or the churches, or even just for Brazil. This struggle is for everyone. And it will take all these networks working together to solve the problem of children's rights in Brazil.

In addition to Women's Division grants, the Street Children's Center of São Bernardo do Campo is supported by Advance, #009198-3RA: Assistance to Minors, São Bernardo do Campo.