De la calle a la vida (From the street to life)
When Vicente Fox became President of Mexico, he resolved to transform the traditional relationship between civil society and the state. In place of the old, clientelist relations of the PRI (Party of the Instituted Revolution), Fox proposed something more capitalist, based on contracts.
De la calle a la vida (“From the street on to life”) is a coalition of government and non government agencies that hope to create the new parameters for this relation. The committee is headed by Martín Pérez of El Caracol, Alicia Vargas of CIDES, and officials from the DIF-Nacional (Department of Youth and Families). De la calle a la vida sponsors meetings of organizations around the country to promote new policies around youth homelessness.
Currently, De la calle a la vida has sites in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Puebla, Tijuana, and Monterrey, the largest cities in Mexico.
For those considering working with governments to restructure social policy, we suggest Martín Pérez's article reflecting on his experiences in De la Calle a la vida. You can download it (in Spanish) here.
