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THE NEED
In Guatemala there are an estimated 7,000 street children. Many of these street children are transitory and frequently beg rides in private cars, or come as runaways on public transportation, to travel to Antigua where they engage in street begging, stealing, car-washing & car watching, prostitution, and the sale and abuse of drugs.
Antigua is a natural draw for homeless and abandoned street children, given its high concentration of international tourists, business conventioneers, and language students who arrive to Antigua from around the world.
This large international presence also presents a natural draw for poor, homeless, and underprivileged Indian youth and families from around the countryside. These internal migrants leave their simple villages, broken homes, and rural areas, and travel to Antigua where they are highly susceptible to crime, sexual predation, violence, and to being taken advantage of in employment, relational, and living situations.
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Homeless children located around Antigua Guatemala's Central Park
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At any given moment, there are in excess of 125 homeless people, including young children and adolescents, on the streets in Antigua. At night, these homeless street youth and adults, many of whom have chemical addiction problems, including alcoholism, glue sniffing, and base-crack problems, search for safety and refuge in Antigua's recessed doorways and abandoned alleyways.
In addition, dozens of homeless people can be spotted sleeping under the outdoor arches and covered corridors that surround Antigua's Central Park. The city's garbage dumps are also the home for many more homeless children and adults. These homeless people search the trash for food to eat and clothing to wear, after which they clear a corner in which to sleep, chasing away the rats, spiders and inspects with whom these homeless children and adults compete for food and heat.
A nocturnal visit to any one of the municipal garbage dumps will find women in various stages of pregnancy living, eating, and simply surviving there.
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patrick atkinson, atkinson, pat atkinson, GODS CHILD, GODS CHILD PROJECT, Bismarck, abandoned, orphaned, sexual abuse, homeless, antigua, guatemala, poor, streetchildren, street children, AIDS, alcoholism, God's Child, Nuestros Ahijados, Godschild, Godchild
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