No place for a child

“My friends were poor, but they had someone to care for them. Through thick and thin they had a mother who would make their meals and call for them to come home. And even if there wasn’t much to eat, there was still something. My plate was empty. Well, it would be if I had one!” This is the true story of a child whose struggle to fill stomach and heart never dampens his hope for a better future. Yurgen’s testimony takes us on a voyage of discovery through the poverty and slums of Bolivia. NO PLACE FOR A CHILD There is a certain type of story that we choose to keep to ourselves and another that we are keen to pass on. Yurgen’s words to me belong to the second group. They tell of his childhood in Bolivia, high up in the Cordillera of the Andes, a vista of cloud-capped peaks whose majesty is not matched by the quality of life experienced by the local population. And this is especially true of the urban sprawl at the fringes of the cities. Men and women, drawn by the glistening lights of opportunity, set out from their villages for a better life, but they invariably encounter the daily misery of the slums in which their children grow up. A kind-hearted child, a street child, a lost child – this is the story that Yurgen has entrusted to you, the reader.