Chapter 5
Home Abandonment Prevention Program

I. HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS ON WORK WITH STREET CHILDREN, THEIR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES II. ACTIONS FOR APPROACHING AND MOTIVATION IN THE STREET ENVIRONMENT III. PREVENTIVE ATTENTION PROGRAMS WITH CHILDREN IN THEIR FIRST STAGE OF LIVING IN THE STREETS IV. WORK WITH FAMILIES V. PROCESS ON ORGANITATIONAL AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT VI. SCHOOL DROP OUT PREVENTION VII. FORMATIVE AND PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES FOR INCOME GENERATION VIII. INTER-AGENCY COORDINATION IX. SOCIAL POLICY X.TECHNICAL ASPECTS

Besides the home abandonment prevention , this program focuses on the prevention of issues such as school drop out, delinquency, drug addiction, prostitution, child abuse or physical and mental abuse and sexual abuse.

In order to cope with preventive processes, the YMCA works through three simultaneous stages:

• Street contact
• Family work
• Community work
• Formative Centres

Additionally, this chapter deals with planning strategies that have been developed in an articulated way in each one of the stages that constitute the Home Abandonment Prevention Program. Above strategies are as follows:

• Actions to prevent school drop out
• Productive and formative activities for income generation
• Inter-agency coordination
• Social policies

Finally, some general considerations are included concerning the following: technical aspects such as planning, performing, monitoring, evaluating, investigating and systematizing, which must be taken into account for a suitable development of a given social project.

I. HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS ON WORK WITH STREET CHILDREN, THEIR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES

For a major comprehension of the evolutionary process that the YMCA of Bogotá has lived in relation to the issue of street children, their families and communities, a synthesis of the main historical aspects and the treatment of this issue are stated as follows in order to help locating the sector into the group of strategies the model establishes.

The YMCA of Bogotá, founded on the10th of March, 1964, began its work under the direction of Donald C. Warrington in a branch office located on Calle 24 No. 13-57, from where it promoted the linking of young and adult volunteers interested in spreading God's Kingdom, giving priority to the margined communities work. Subsequently, in 1966 the YMCA got the piece of land in Santadercito, Cundinamarca to start the YMCA Camp Bochica. This camp became the ideal space for the development of educative processes with children and youth through guided recreation.

In 1971, the phenomenon of street children so badly called "Gamines" ( Spanish for orchid) was very noticeable and the Camp Bochica staff managed by Larry Sears, started to establish contact with homeless children taking them to the camp, located at just 50 km from Bogotá centre.

In 1972 the campaign "save a child" was started to get funds to provide integral attention to a group of children at Camp Bochica.

The children had a sort of teacher who developed scholar leveling processes to have access to Santandercito Public School. Two log cabins were built to offer children a comfortable life and a group of volunteers supported the so called teachers in the process of giving them a warm home environment. Nevertheless, a significant number of children and youth gave up the program, and, thus, it was decided to give priority to little children who had remained on the streets for the inmediate time.

Simultaneously, the work on the streets was maintained and in 1975 it was necessary to have a branch office. Hence, contacts with the Colombian Urban Development Institute (IDU) were established in order to rent a house in downtown Bogotá (Calle 23 - Carrera 3). In this branch office, children and youths had access to a program that offered them a service of shower, health, food and, in some cases, transitory home complemented by educative and entertainment activities.

As children were growing up in Camp Bochica, there was the necessity to complement their education with workshops. Thus, a ceramic factory was created but then, closed due to transport and marketing difficulties.

In 1984 youth that had grown up in the program and that had lived in Camp Bochica, were finishing their secondary school. Therefore it was necessary to look for new alternatives. so the YMCA rented a house located in the "Villas de Granada" neighborhood, where young people who had finished their secondary studies in Santandercito moved to.

At this new stage, it was expected that these youth would find a job and continue their studies. However, afterwards, each of them organized his/her life separately and the house was given back.

In addition, the approach was evaluated and it was concluded that continuing the program at camp was expensive, had a low coverage, and young people were not well prepared to face a labor life.

Due to this fact and to the economical constrains, the YMCA considered convenient to learn and explore the boarding programs situation with homeless children, and concluded that it was feasible to obtain rooms for children that were contacted at the first stage (street stage). At the same time, the YMCA started questioning the feasibility of carrying out Programs on Prevention of Home Abandonment, hence, Juan Duarte, Program Coordinator, was appointed to survey homeless children about their families living conditions and the possibility of contacting them. Through this first approach, there was an incertanty about the feasibility of contacting the families in order to deepen in the causes of desertion and the viability of structuring a preventive program. Hence the necessity of doing a search was evident and therefore, Vladimir Carvajal was hired to carry it out with the cooperation of the Program Coordinators, Juan Duarte and Luis Carlos Avila under the guidance of the YMCA General Director.

Through the design of games, recordings and leisure interviews made with groups of homeless children/youth between 8 and 16 years old, life stories of 100 children were collected, complemented, and corroborated by using a sample of 50 families.

With this study, the following was established:

• 98% of the children abandoned their homes at the age of 5 to 13 years old.
• 78% of the interviewed children came from Bogotá and the 22% from other cities.
• 20% of children's fathers had died, there was no information available for about 30%, and 13% of the children had a stepfather which showed a 63% rate of father absence.
• 22% of children's mothers had died, and there was information available about 20%, showing that a great part of the children's families was no structured.
• Father or stepfather's occupation : bricklayer, bulk loading, cardboard recycler, lottery ticket seller, peddler.
• Children origin per city sector: 44% Center East, 31% South, 15% East, 5% Center, 3% West.
• Causes of Home abandonment:
  43% Physical and verbal abuse coming from the stepfather and other relatives.
  16% Solitude, abandon and locking in.
  12% Hunger
  14% Freedom wish, transference to an institution.

In conclusion, children deserted when variables such as extreme poverty, abandonment and mistreatment were combined, as well as when conditions like father or mother absence (non-structured families) were predominant, and when the mother had to stay out of home.

Housing conditions were characterized by being rudimentary, by lacking of utilities, and by being occupied by invaders.

Once the information was analyzed, the YMCA started to define a new approach based on the following facts:

• The boarding institutions had rooms and infrastructure available, thus, it was not necessary for the YMCA to maintain a program like that.
• The institutions that maintained boarding programs did not develop processes to reintegrate children to their families.
• The majority of the street children had sibiling on the streets, or about to become street inhabitants.
• There was no knowledge about institutions working on home abandonment prevention

From above facts, the following statements came up:

• Meanwhile the causes of abandonment were not faced, the phenomenon of homeless children will continue increasing.
• Not all the rehabilitation processes succeed.
• Rehabilitation processes take long time, are not cost-effective and have a low coverage.
• Homeless children's sibiling are on a high risk of abandoning their homes.
• Families are receptive to the returning process and they are willing to participate in preventive processes.
• The families said that they did not have neither time nor knowledge to educate their children.
• Preventative care programs addressed to children and families are required.
• There are many cases of families in critical conditions that threaten their survival.

Based on above statements, the YMCA designed the program with the preventive approach described in this work.

1. Advances in the investigation

In 1987 the YMCA hired Maria Clara Rodriguez, to deepen in the causes of abandonment . In order to do this, a sample of 50 families, 100 "chinches" ( Spanish for little street children) y 20 "largos"( Spanish for older street inhabitants) whom the YMCA were working with, was selected. The conclusions were that the 75% of the children who returned home by the program, did it in order to satisfy their protection necessities, their lack of love and feeding, and, at the same time, claimed that they had abandoned their homes due to physical abuse (40%), verbal abuse (38%) and economical suffer age (31%). According to this, the underage conditioned their returning home by the diminishing of abuse and by the idea of the father or stepfather abuser to be away from the family.

The survey revealed that the "chinches" were surviving on the streets by begging (37%) and stealing (24%), and that the attractive thing about streets was freedom.

Regarding the "largos", Spanish for older street inhabitants, (between 16 and 22 years old), it was concluded that they had lived on the streets during a period of time that oscillated between 5 and 15 years, and that the majority of them had abandoned home at the age of 6.

In 1988 the program was evaluated externally, and it was possible to see the success of the work with the preventive approach between 1985 to 1988.

Through the development of a "Forum of Street Children" some causes of abandonment investigated before, were confirmed. With this, there was a clearer definition of the preventive approach and a project with the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF) was conducted. A co-financing agreement was achieved for a year which allowed to spread the program to other communities and to re-structure the YMCA of Bogotá´s Development Area.

In 1989 a census with people from and on the streets was done with the following results: 2.520 people from the streets (675 children, 662 youths, 1.183 adults) 2.149 people on the streets (1.252 children, 311 youths, 584 adults) and 166 homeless families with 282 children. During this year, there were also, several forums with homeless populations, which facilitated a major comprehension of this issue.

In 1990 the program spread to 210 families and 16 communities in four zones of the city. During this year an agreement with the Universidad Santo Tomas was subscribed. From this, a definition of a new approaching model of the families was initiated 10. This comprises the development of eight sessions of four hours each. The investigation and the reflection with the families is done simultaneously, achieving changes of perception, beliefs and attitudes that are reflected in new behaviors that place the family in a perspective of change.

This investigation was made with the work of the professional staff, YMCA volunteers and students guided by Angela Hernandez and Jaidivi Nuñez, teachers of the Universidad Santo Tomas, with the advising of Jairo Estupiñan. The YMCA started the implementation of the approaching model, structured on the basis of some family experts such as Mc Cubbin, Salvador Minuchin, Olsson D.H. and Pattersonn.

In 1991 the work was spread to 17 communities in which there were 150 groups of children and youth, and 200 families. Another important aspect during this period was the emphasis on Inter-institutional Coordination processes that originated the creation of the Association of Entities that Work with Underprivileged Minors (AES) with the leadership of the YMCA. This has been consolidated in relation to initiatives favoring homeless populations. In addition, during 1991 some of the income generation initiatives were started and were consolidated in 1992 with the formation of tailoring micro-companies, peanut, pinatas, chocolates, screen, and polyethylene boxes that contributed to improve youths and families incomes.

In 1993 the Corporation "Action and Future" was founded with the support of AES and the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF) along with other NGOs focusing to the diminishing of begging by the "PLAN BONUS" campaign which meant to change begging by bonus given to homeless children which could be changed by services at the Children Shelter called Reception Centre for Street Children and Youth. This Centre was given to the YMCA to be managed, taking into account its expertise in working with homeless children and its main role in the Inter-institutional Coordination processes.

During 1993 the work processes with families coming from "inquilinatos" (Spanish for "rooming houses" in Bogotá downtown were structured, and other families who lived in limited spaces where children were permanently locked in, while adults struggled to look for food in order to survive.

The work with the families spread to 30 neighborhoods in different areas of the city.

In 1994 the YMCA Government Office in charge of the surveillance of human rights of the civil population conducted a census about families on the streets and by initiative of the YMCA an analysis was done on the living conditions of the families living in tiny shelters for homeless people. This analysis was presented to the ICBF as a project of the creation of "Hogar Amane-Ser" in which the YMCA assists children, youth and families since 1997.

In 1995 the School Drop Out Prevention Programme was developed by the YMCA with the more vulnerable communities. Also, during this period of time, agreements with the SENA (service learning institute) were done for training in subjects such as foods and construction.

In 1996 the agreement developed through the Corporation "Action and Future" was over. This corporation supported the functioning of the Reception Centre and then, after six months of being closed, the YMCA presented a project to the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) which allowed the beginning of the Reception Centre that finally, was located in the YMCA branch office in the Claret neighborhood to assist street children and young people.

During this year, a proposal was presented to the ICBF was made to create the "Encounter Home " located at the East of Bogotá. In this place, working processes for prevention were developed with several communities that belong to the area.

In 1998 the YMCA was given the administration of the Centre "Villa Niña" (Girls Home) in which underage girls are assisted while their families are found or if net, the girls are transferred to specialized institutions.

In 1999 new programs were created to generate incomes, they included: bakery, sewing and bracelet making workshops. In addition, the club "Eben Ezer" was created with the objective of giving special attention to homeless boys, girls and youth and their families, with the belief of preventing the desertion at the first stage. Also, the sessions with the whole team of professionals that made feasible the publication of the "Manual for the Integral Development " were more intense.

During 2000 an agreement with the Health Ministry was subscribed to the development of the project called "I Love Life" focused on the living together. When this project was finished, the YMCA decided to maintain the branch office in Cazuca to work with children and youth that had started to live on the streets.

It was the YMCA´s 35th anniversary during this year celebrated with the campaign: " May the sun shine for you, all children and all youth in Colombia" and a symposium was carried out title "Bogotá facing the homeless people in the XXI Century" by AES during the presidency of Patricia Fajardo, a YMCA employee.

In 2001, receiving support of the Baring Foundation and by the Y' Care International from England management, it was feasible to publish this work which gives a general idea about the preventive processes that the YMCA carries out in Bogotá and to show that by an experience that started in 1997 with street children, it has been possible to improve all the work until becoming into a global model that articulates the work in several stages, being integrated by the concept of "Pyramid Development".