Save the children

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recently launched an all-year round fund-raising project that seeks to help get children out of the concrete jungles called streets. Thousands of Citibank card-bearing members like me received a very touching letter from Tomoo Hozumi, the UNICEF country representative in the Philippines.

Printed on the envelope of UNICEF’s Unite for Children letter is a heart-pricking message: “For the average child, sleeping outdoors is called camping. For a street child, it’s called surviving.”

In his letter, Hozumi wrote about Alvin (not his real name), a toddler in the Philippines whose mother abandoned him after his father died. From the account of Hozumi, Alvin’s life is like a typical Filipino tear-jerker of a tele-novela.

According to statistics, Hozumi cited, “there are over 246,000 children living and working on the streets in the Philippines with hardly any hope for a better future. They are unwanted, unloved, and forced to live a life of fear…At an age when these children should be in school learning essential knowledge and skills, they are made to learn hard lessons of survival on the streets,” Hozumi said.

Pleading for the cause of these children, Hozumi urged potential donors for a monthly gift of P600 to help for the upkeep of UNICEF shelters for rescued children like Alvin. This amount will also help give two former street children the chance to go to school. The UNICEF relies entirely on voluntary contributions from generous donors from all over the world.

The donation to this UNICEF project can either be in cash or be enrolled to Citibank One Bill to be automatically charged to Citibank credit card. “As a UNICEF Champion for Children, your committed monthly support will sustain this life-changing and life saving program that aids UNICEF in keeping children out of the streets and out of harm’s way,” Hozumi said.

The desire to make something better of themselves burns brightly within, but so many of them do not yet have the opportunity that Alvin got, Hozumi stated.

After being abandoned by his mother, Alvin was taken in by an aunt who despite her own financial hardships sent him to school. But all changed when Alvin’s mother and her new husband came back for him. Alvin has difficulty adjusting to his new circumstances. He resented his mother and stepfather, especially when his mother became physically abusive. Here is the rest of Alvin’s story as told in Hozumi’s letter.

“Rather than endure more beatings, Alvin ran away. He was just 10 years old. After wandering aimlessly, he decided to make the streets his new home. There, his evenings were spent sleeping on the cold pavement, blanketed only by smoggy, starless skies. His days were spent begging for spare change or hanging out with a gang.

“Instead of playing games with other kids his age, Alvin was forced to play patintero with the city’s traffic, dodging fast cars instead of playmates just to scavenge for food. And when there wasn’t enough to eat, he learned to sniff rugby to forget the rumbling in his stomach.

“But Alvin wasn’t just hungry for food. He still carried within him an unquenchable hunger for knowledge. Though toughened by four years of hard living, the little schoolboy in Alvin still dreamt of learning. He wanted to prove his aunt right. Yet he knew it would only be possible if he could find a way out of the streets and back into school.

“As luck would have it, a van deployed by an NGO partner of UNICEF was making its way through the busy streets of Manila, showing educational television programs to street children who were hungry for knowledge. And when the van crossed Alvin’s path, all he had to do was hitch his dreams onto it and brace himself for the ride.

“Alvin became a familiar fixture around the van. Wide-eyed and eager to learn, he also made an indelible impression on the social workers carrying out the mobile education program. They discovered that, despite his shyness, Alvin was an intelligent boy with much to say. And the more they got to know him, the more it became apparent that he was determined to change the course of his life for the better. When he was given a place in an NGO-run center for runaways supported by UNICEF, Alvin gladly accepted the offer.

“Life at the shelter was very different from his life in the streets. Alvin slept in a proper bed and had three square meals a day – a far cry from the cold concrete pavements of Manila and the daily need to beg or rummage for leftover food in garbage bins. With dedicated fervour, he went to school every day along with his fellow shelter mates. His favorite subject was English.

“’My life has changed here. I used to pick a lot of fights. I used to be thin, small and dark. But I’m taller now. I’m happier. I have fewer problems,’ he says.

“Alvin’s eye lit up when asked about his future. He dreamt of becoming a seaman so he can see the world, just like his Kuya Raffy, one of the shelter’s success stories and role model for Alvin and his peers.

“He also wants to do good things for another someday, just like Kuya Randel, a kind young man who has taken time out to advise and teach street children. But he doesn’t seem to realize that to the other boys at the shelter, he is already a lot like Raffy and Randel. In the few months he’s been there, he has thrived and excelled in the regimented environment.

“Too many of his fellow shelter mates, he was already an inspiration, an idol…YOU can give children like Alvin much-needed support – a place where they are welcome, where they can be given the love and care that they need,” Hozumi urged.

The UNICEF has also come up with a Halloween-themed fund-raising project to assist poor and disadvantaged kids all over the world. Dubbed as “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF Superheroes,” children themselves who are better situated in life can lend a hand to assist street children and children in calamity-stricken areas.

Although Halloween has pagan roots observed every October 31st – or on the eve of the Western Christian festivals of the dead, trick-or-treating kids wearing costumes of their favorite superheroes will help collect donations for UNICEF projects to help save children’s lives.