Left: A group of gamins has paused to build a fire on the sidewalk, tearing 
the layers of political posters off the adjacent wall. Such fires, which dot the 
city’s streets, parks, alleys, and vacant lots each night, provide warmth and a 
temporary focal point. Below: Street children who are able to handle the 
transition to a more normal life may eventually find themselves at La 
Florida, a residential program run by a Salesian priest. Children admitted to 
La Florida live in small self-governing groups within a dormitory complex. 
\ 1 
VH 
at the more preoccupied, restrained 
onlooker. The spontaneity and inten- 
sity of these activities reveal that these 
children have not lost the need or abil- 
ity for play. 
Movies are perhaps the all-time fa- 
vorite source of entertainment for 
street children, providing a ready- 
made internal escape. In addition, the 
lines of waiting ticket buyers are a 
convenient source of income, and the 
theater itself offers refuge from the 
street. After the theater is cleared, 
its covered bay may serve as the 
night’s shelter, the children spreading 
their cardboard bedding over the hard, 
cold tile. Another diversion is gam- 
bling, which takes the form of pitching 
small coins or pebbles. It is done with 
all seriousness: play is for keeps. 
Hopping onto the bumpers of mov- 
ing buses and trucks doubles as en- 
tertainment and transportation. This 
practice is hazardous, however, and 
all too often the weak or inexperienced 
fall off and are crushed by another 
vehicle. Such accidents go largely un- 
noticed and certainly unreported. 
There are a number of government 
and private programs that attempt to 
address what each perceives to be the 
“gamin problem.” Such formal pro- 
grams are oriented toward either pro- 
tection or rehabilitation, a philosophi- 
cal dividing line that is immediately 
reflected in the services provided. 
Consider a small program in Cali 
that is sponsored by the Red Cross 
and run by a Peace Corps volunteer. 
It provides an “ambulance service” 
in the form of a truck that goes out 
one night a week to visit areas where 
some of the children are known to 
sleep. The staff, equipped with a basic 
knowledge of first aid. treats many 
of the common cuts and bruises that, 
on the street, can so often lead to 
serious infection. A suspected serious 
medical problem can also be followed 
and the possibilities for treatment ex- 
plored. Food and clothing are occa- 
sionally given out. This practice is 
reminiscent of the ambulance service 
the Salvation Army provided in Na- 
ples after World War II, where nightly 
distributions of food, clothing, and 
medical supplies were made from the 
back of a truck in an effort to reach 
street children and other urban poor. 
Programs geared toward rehabili- 
tation tend to view the child as deviant 
or delinquent and are generally re- 
strictive and dictatorial in nature. The 
runaway rate from such settings is 
extremely high, fueling the myth that 
these children are uneducable delin- 
quents, born of “bad seed” and beyond 
sustained help. For example, during 
the fall of 1979, Cali’s largest gov- 
ernment program received forty-five 
new boys in the same month that forty- 
six boys escaped. Some of the run- 
aways have described it as an “op- 
pressive prison,” but its guards and 
chain-link fences are no match for the 
determination of children who at such 
an early age have already broken pri- 
mary family bonds. 
A different orientation has been 
adopted by an organization in Bogota, 
which has a relatively new branch in 
Cali. This particular program works 
to preserve the child’s sense of liberty 
and autonomy. The child decides 
whether to enter, and the door is al- 
47 
