To meet the needs of street children, the Bolivian Alalay foundation was started in the early 1990’s by a 19 year-old Bolivian student who passed them every day on her way to university and, seeing these high risk children with insufficient food and mostly without anyone to love or care for them, she was determined to do something to help. Alalay rescues these kids from the streets and offers them a loving environment living together in family cabins; feeds, clothes and educates them and encourages them in their future working lives.

The name Alalay was chosen by the street children themselves and means “I am cold” in the local Aymara native language.

Since it was started, the charity has helped over 10,000 kids and adolescents and works with over 1,000 children annually. It currently has 400 children living in welcome centres, and aldeas (larger communities where children attend school, do homework and housework and so on) and provides food, health care, clothing, education, social work, spiritual, psychological and legal help, and technical training for the children. Most importantly, it provides something they’ve often never had – a home and a family.

Alalay is entirely dependant on donations, since the national government does not take any active positive interest in the plight of the street children.

There are currently two main centres for the children, one in La Paz and the other at Santa Cruz.

Alalay works by involving the kids in three stages of activity:

• Firstly, street workers talk and play with them in the streets, building up trust and a relationship with the children and encouraging them to come to Alalay.

• Secondly, the children can choose to enter a “welcome house” in the city, where they will learn life skills such as washing, wearing shoes, looking after belongings (they may never have owned anything before) and so on. Depending on each child, they may stay here for just a few weeks or in some cases many months, and may also attend a local school.

• Finally, when they move to the aldea (a Centre about 40 minute’s bus journey outside town) they may start at school, and begin to lead a more “normal” family life. When they are old enough, they will also start technical training – either a beauty course back in the city of Santa Cruz (including hairdressing, manicure and beauty treatment), or a car mechanic’s course, wood working and textile work. They will also be encouraged to go on to further education such as university, so that they have the skills to get a future job.

The children live in family groups of around a dozen of similar ages, in a cabin with a house mother or father. At Santa Cruz the Centre cares for around 70 children aged between 3 and 20 years, with a further 30/40 children staying at the welcome houses in the city.

The Centre is run by a small number of Bolivians (many of whom are infrequently paid by the charity, since the priority is to feed the children, and have other jobs to supplement their incomes) with occasional help from students and other volunteers from various parts of the World. There is also a psychologist and a social worker at the Centre.