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Mexico City, Mexico
For an organization that helps street children in Mexico City, "El Caracol" has a curious name. In Spanish, it means "the snail," a reference to the snail shell that the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl, used to create humanity.
Though less ambitious, El Caracol's mission is also about creating new life - for the thousands of children who live on the streets of Mexico City.
Its tool is not a shell but education, a carefully planned curriculum that helps street kids "awaken their inner selves, and thus empower them to plan their own lives."
The challenge facing El Caracol can be told through numbers: according to a 1995 study, there are at least 14,000 street kids (not counting those over 18), 40% of the children began life on the street between the ages of 5 and 9, 70% use drugs, and 50% have an active sexual life, putting them at risk for sexually transmitted diseases.
El Caracol tackles their immediate needs first by sending educators into the streets to teach the children about drugs, AIDS and other dangers street life entails. In sewers and abandoned buildings, they set up slideshows and hand out comic books featuring cartoon characters whose stories are drawn from the lives of actual street kids. It is through creative, though realistic, portrayals of their life that the educators hope to engage them in serious discussions about health.
Once the educators get to know the children well, they identify the few who are ready to take the next step and invite them to live at El Caracol's transition house, where the children begin an 18 month program of counseling and vocational training to integrate them into society.
In eight years, 193 street kids have completed the program and moved off the streets.
Martin Perez, the founder of El Caracol, likens himself to a man who walks along a beach and tries to save starfish by throwing them into the ocean. Others laugh at him because the ocean keeps washing them ashore. But he's not deterred because in the end, he knows a few are saved.
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Sources: : UN Statistics Division, World Bank, CIA World Factbook
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