Street Boys

2003 Personal Project | Mozambique island, Nampula, Mozambique

In a poor country, with a rate of 25% of young people and where there is a very large family breakdown, due to the civil war, “street children” are in large numbers and always growing. Whether they are orphans, displaced or abandoned by their parents.

The true concept of family is collapsing.Young mothers are in large numbers. The father who doesn't come out and the mother who doesn't care and ends up having more children from other men is a constant. 

There are legal mechanisms at the state level, so that the mother can ask the father for help in recognizing and supporting the child. But the process requires the payment of a high amount, at the time of filing the process, which is supported by the mother.

The abandonment of the home by the father creates many problems for mothers who have to support 8,9,10 children without any source of income.

The main objective of this project is to identify the real “Street Boys” boys between 8 and 16 years old. 

1. Remove children from the street. Only by removing children from the street can we free them from unpaid work, child exploitation, sleeping in the streets, in holes, on boats, from the thefts they commit out of hunger.

2. Get a house. Arranging a rented house on the Island will be an immediate first phase. It will serve to create the first bases, rules and carry out a more effective initial follow-up.

3. Education and activities. This year, it will no longer be possible for them to go to school. Classes and school and sports activities will be held in order to keep the Boys with a full-time occupation.

4. Building a Home. In a second phase, get land next to a school and build a home from scratch on the mainland. Equipped with its own infrastructure, an area for training and farming