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Defensa de Niños Internacional
Since 1989, DNI has been working in Colombia. Today it runs 5 programs to prevent youth homelessness.
- Close to the Laguna de Tota, in the state of Boyacá (6 hours north of Bogotá, when the army and the guerrillas allow a car to pass), many boys and girls work on onion farms. The culture has deteriorated to the point to fathers send their children and wives into the fields while they get drunk at home. The bosses pay the men, even though their wives and children do the work.
In addition to economic injustice, this system breeds abuse and family violence, and few children attend school. DNI decided to end this “culture of poverty.”
DNI began with recreation. Near Tota, parties have always revolved around booze, and children begin to drink at the age of five -- many men believe that liquor is good for kids, because it is made of corn and brings color to their faces. DNI has promoted “healthy parties” where young DJs and bands play great music, everyone dances, and drinks are tasty but non-alcoholic. These parties have been so successful that mayors of other towns have sent spies to see how they work.
DNI preaches harm reduction: “Beer and booze are tasty,” they say, “but not every day!”
- Barrancabermeja is a city of 400,000 people on the Magdalena River, in the middle of the Colombian civil war. The city has a long tradition of populist and left wing leadership, but today the autodefensas (right-wing guerrillas) have taken power in the city. These thugs have murdered union leaders, human rights advocates, and even girls who dress in mini-skirts, while dealing drugs and pimping young women.
DNI teaches human rights to children in the city. They have several houses (often moved, because of threats from the autodefensas) where kids can come to play or get help with schoolwork. Kids and their mothers also learn about nutrition.
In the last several years, AIDS has come to Barrancabermeja, and DNI has trained a group of girls as peer educators. They are amazingly courageous, having even asked autodefensa chiefs for permission to teach classes on sex education to gang members.
- In Bogotá and Barrancabermeja, DNI works in children’s prisons. Though these are horrible places in Colombia, DNI tries to provide space for education and play.
- After the earthquake in Quindío in 1999, DNI began work as an advisor to the shelters for quake victims. These shelters had created an environment of boredom -- with consequent drug addiction and easy sex. DNI teaches classes, augments kids’ self-esteem, and advises shelter directors.
- Many NGOs work with refugees in Bogotá, and DNI raises funds for several of them. They also run an interesting program: many young gangsters hang out near schools, watching girls as they leave classes. Outreach workers propose poetry workshops -- “Think how you’ll seduce them with a poem!” -- then use poetry as a lever to encourage boys to return to school. Poetry also creates a new identity for the boys, and many end up as community leaders.
DNI-Colombia
Fernando Sabogal
Av. Carrera 22 (Parkway) No. 40-69 Of. 301
Barrio La Soledad, Bogotá
Colombia
57 1 2449913 / 3686503
dnicolombia@etb.net.co
understanding social services for street kids in Latin America
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