Lives to be rescued” “

There are between 100 and 150 million of them throughout the world, and Europe too is not immune from this phenomenon, especially in the countries of Eastern Europe: they are the street children, the first victims “of family breakdown, rapid urbanization and migration”. At the level of the European Church, thought is being given to the creation of “a regional coordination of the various apostolic forces, with a concrete agenda of the various pastoral activities, in order to promote a new and heightened awareness of the problem”. The project is explained by Archbishop Agostino Marchetto , secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and People on the Move, the Vatican office responsible for promoting the recent European meeting on the apostolate of street children (Rome, 25-26 October), which was attended by some 40 participants from most European countries and delegates also from Bolivia, Brazil, India, the Philippines and Peru. In PortUGAL, for example, “the phenomenon of street children is present in the slum outskirts and in the older areas of the big cities”. Usually they are groups of adolescents aged between 10 and 16, for the most part males, explains Bishop Josè Francisco S. Alves of Portalegre-Castel Branco. “They have behind them stories of poverty, of the unemployment of their parents, and homelessness; in other cases they are the result of social scourges like drug addiction, prostitution or alcoholism, or of situations of immigration and family and social uprooting. Apart from this, the inability of schools to give a response to such cases is ascertained”. It is a phenomenon that “requires – in the view of Msgr. Alves – a particular attention by European governments and by the Church”. In Portugal, thanks to public institutions and social solidarity, parishes and members of religious orders, “we have prevented several thousand children from living rough on the streets”. The many projects include the “Projecto Rua” of the Istituto de Apoio à Criança, which “has rescued some 600 children from the streets of Lisbon since 1989”, and the Obra da rua founded by Father Americo in 1940, which runs five “Casas do Gaiato” that provide a home for 450 adolescents. Over the last 65 years some 8,000 children have been cared for in these homes. Their rules include: self-government and independence, exercise of freedom and sense of responsibility, community work and vocational training, education in trust and self-esteem, religious and spiritual education. In Romania AND Moldavia the Austrian aid organization Concordia has been running specific projects for street children over the last 13 years. In Bucharest there are about 1000 of them; “a quarter of them are girls, a third probably Romanies”, explains Father Georg Sporschill, president of the organization. “After the political revolution in Romania the situation has improved, and we are able to provide for the younger children. But the big problem remains that of older children aged from 14 to 24, of whom people are afraid”. In Bucharest Concordia has so far helped over 1000 children. But in Moldavia the situation is far worse: according to official data, there are over 50,000 abandoned children in the country, even if “street children are not to be seen because the police maintain order. But the state-run homes are problematic and frequently don’t have the necessary money. The poorest children are those in the hospitals”. The method used by the organization is that of contacting children on the street, usually “with a presence of a teenager who had once been a street child himself”. They are then placed in a social centre, given schooling, and trained for a job. Prayer, of course, is never lacking. A “Europe Home” is due to be opened in Bucharest by the end of 2006; it should provide a home for 120 children and guests from the countries of Eastern and Western Europe. ItalY too is not without its street children. Chiara Amirante, founder of the Association Nuovi orizzonti, established in 1994, tells of her dramatic encounters with street children in the most ill-famed areas of Rome: “These encounters have torn my heart”. She describes her “meeting with Maria, who at the age of only 17 was forced on several occasions to drink animal blood and participate in black masses with abominable violence committed on children”; or “the 16-year-old Claudia, who for having helped a friend to escape from the clutches of the prostitution racket was forced to watch this same friend die a horrible death”. Thousands of youngsters have been helped in the communities run by “Nuovi Orizzonti”, and reception centres, street teams and help lines have multiplied both in Italy and abroad. “The children received into our homes – says Chiara – have themselves felt the strong need to get involved in a street mission whose protagonists are not fine preachers but witnesses who are able to testify what the meeting with Christ has worked in their life”. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1337 N.ro relativo : 77 Data pubblicazione : 03/11/2004