Where is the government? The Challenge of Street Children

Over the past two years, I have spent more time in Ecuador than at home. In the summer of 2007, I lived with a host family in the Valle de los Chillos on the outskirts of Quito, Ecuador’s capital city. In August 2008, I returned to Ecuador, venturing to Guayaquil, the nation’s largest city, to begin the project I will spend this summer completing. Yesterday, I returned once again to Quito, the very city I fell in love with two years ago; the very city that showed me just how different much of the world is from the one I know.

I still remember my first car ride in Ecuador to my host family’s rural home. In the city, I recall hundreds of homeless dogs tearing through scattered trash on the sides of the street. As we moved to the valley, skinny cows grazed on dry grass, and even skinnier children ran shoeless alongside the car. “Why aren’t they in school at midday?” I asked my host mother. “Because their families can’t afford it,” she replied. Consequently, these children would grow up educated only in the ways of the streets. This did not seem fair. How could a country turn its back on its own children?

Nicki Lehrer, a colleague of mine from MIT, had a similar experience two years before. In 2005, she founded the non-profit Children of Guayaquil in order to provide new opportunities for the street children of Ecuador.

This summer I am working with Nicki, her Vice President Andrea Pazmiño, and an IDC teammate, Richard Mancco, to address some of the challenges facing rural Pascuales, Ecuador. Our focus is a group of women called the Frente Femenino, or Women Fighters, who have banned together to support Children of Guayaquil. As an MIT International Development Consulting project, I will help the Frente Femenino start businesses so they can better provide education and health care for their children.

Despite being incredibly in awe of the positive changes Children of Guayaquil has enacted in Pascuales, I can only wonder where the Ecuadorian government is. At times, it seems as if the government is completely uninvested in Ecuador’s future. What role must the government take in the lives of the street children, and how can individuals like me fill in the gaps?