BOLIVIA
Street children reintegration - creating small family enterprises
and training in management

Location: Trinidad, Bolivia
Local Association: AIC Trinidad
Person in charge of the project: Miriam Aquim de Vigo, Sister Margarita Dubosvsky

Objectives
General:
Improving living conditions of the families whose children work in the street, in the suburb of Trinidad City, and reintegration of street children in their family and in the school system.
Specific:
- Building premises, providing equipment and work tools
- Organizing a training about micro-business management and family expenses

Activities
- Building premises for each family and implementing micro-business.
- Training workshops for parents about health, hygiene, and micro-business management.
- Training workshops for children about hygiene, dangers of the street.
- Frequent visits of the volunteers to families.

Project history
The volunteers first came in contact with 15 street children, whom they assisted individually, before deciding to create this project that, finally, led them to get in contact with the families of the children. Children were shoe-shiners, bike-keepers or car-washers, and were not sent to school. After some visits, meetings and exchanges, the volunteers made a diagnosis of the situation and proposed to create a program for small family businesses.

Beneficiaries
Families are composed of children working in the streets, fathers paid by the day working on sites and mothers being domestic employees, or seasonal agricultural workers.

Project total cost: 27,560.00 Euros
Local contribution: voluntary work of volunteers to support and guide the children and their families