Shine-A-Light

This letter has been formatted so you need only drag to highlight the text, click the copy command on your Edit menu, and paste it in the textbox of your email program. The electronic address of James Wolfenson, the President of the World Bank, is feedback@worldbank.org.

Esta carta está formatada e por isso só precisa de seleccionar o texto, dar a ordem para copiar no seu menu “editar” e dar a ordem de passar (também no seu menu de “editar”) para o espaço de texto do seu email. O endereço de email de James Wolfenson, Presidente do Banco Mundial, é feedback@worldbank.org.

In the last several years, the World Bank has made a noble commitment to health and social service projects in Latin America. We write to ask that World Bank funds be directed to the most vulnerable and forgotten: homeless children.

According to the United Nations, poverty and violence has forced forty million children to beg, steal, work, or prostitute to survive on the streets of Latin America. Children live alone and homeless in the sewers of Bogotá, in tunnels under Mexican border cities, and in shacks made of trash in the Guatemala City dump. In some places, young mothers give birth knowing that only half of their children will survive to one year: in the Guatemala City dump, infant mortality rates approach 50%. Older children face starvation, infectious diseases, sexual violence, drug abuse, and STDs. Health conditions for these children are among the worst in the world, and almost unimaginable to anyone in a developed nation.

Fortunately, the plight of street children is not hopeless. Hundreds of committed organizations are working to support and nurture them, feed them, and find them homes. However, almost all of these non-governmental organizations -- from the hugely successful, like El Caracol and Ednica in Mexico or Projeto Axé in Brazil, to individual nuns working the streets of small cities -- can barely buy food or medical supplies, let alone pay outreach workers and shelter staff a living wage.

The World Bank has already committed to fund medical and social programs in Latin America. As you make funding decisions, please remember homeless children.




		This letter has been formatted so you need only drag to highlight the text, click the copy command on your Edit menu, and paste it in the textbox of your email program. The electronic address of James Wolfenson, the President of the World Bank, is feedback@worldbank.org. Esta carta está formatada e por isso só precisa de seleccionar o texto, dar a ordem para copiar no seu menu “editar” e dar a ordem de passar (também no seu menu de “editar”) para o espaço de texto do seu email. O endereço de email de James Wolfenson, Presidente do Banco Mundial, é feedback@worldbank.org. Dear Mr. Wolfenson, In the last several years, the World Bank has made a noble commitment to health and social service projects in Latin America. We write to ask that World Bank funds be directed to the most vulnerable and forgotten: homeless children. According to the United Nations, poverty and violence has forced forty million children to beg, steal, work, or prostitute to survive on the streets of Latin America. Children live alone and homeless in the sewers of Bogotá, in tunnels under Mexican border cities, and in shacks made of trash in the Guatemala City dump. In some places, young mothers give birth knowing that only half of their children will survive to one year: in the Guatemala City dump, infant mortality rates approach 50%. Older children face starvation, infectious diseases, sexual violence, drug abuse, and STDs. Health conditions for these children are among the worst in the world, and almost unimaginable to anyone in a developed nation. Fortunately, the plight of street children is not hopeless. Hundreds of committed organizations are working to support and nurture them, feed them, and find them homes. However, almost all of these non-governmental organizations -- from the hugely successful, like El Caracol and Ednica in Mexico or Projeto Axé in Brazil, to individual nuns working the streets of small cities -- can barely buy food or medical supplies, let alone pay outreach workers and shelter staff a living wage. The World Bank has already committed to fund medical and social programs in Latin America. As you make funding decisions, please remember homeless children. Sincerely,