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Helping Homeless Children in Brazil

Poverty

This poverty is most visually represented by the various favelas, slums in the country's metropolitan areas and remote upcountry regions that suffer with economic underdevelopment and below-par standards of living. They have electricity, but often not formally. Favelas are constructed from a variety of materials, ranging from bricks to garbage. Many favelas are very close and very cramped. Inefficient public services, especially those related to security, education and health, severely affect quality of life. Favelas are plagued by sewage, crime and hygiene problems.

Street Children

Street children are an urban problem which has roots in rural poverty, neglect and the enforced, even violent displacement of large numbers of people from the land. Street children are known to receive beatings from the police or members of the public. The main means of surviving on Brazil's streets are: finding food in rubbish bins or on refuse tips; being financially exploited by street sellers or as shoe shiners; stealing; prostitution; drug running.

Violence

The level of violence in some favela is comparable to that of a war zone. Muggings, robberies, kidnappings and gang violence are common. Police brutality and corruption are widespread.

Murder

Most of Brazil's street children expect to be killed before they are 18. According to Brazil's National Movement of Street Children, between 4 and 5 adolescents are murdered daily and that every 12 minutes a child is beaten. Conservative figures put the number at 2 killings every day. According to Save The Children, a child's chance of dying in the drug areas of the favelas is eight to nine times greater than in the Middle East.

About the Author

Let's Help Brazil! is a non-profit charity. Our mission is the relief of poverty and advancement of education for Brazil's homeless children. Our focus is the street children of Salvador, in the state of Bahia - one of the poorest regions of Brazil. Visit http://www.letshelpbrazil.org for more information.

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