Children living on the streets

It is not easy to live a life full of so many complications, but it is even more difficult to live a life where the highest expectation is to be able to get enough to eat breakfast in a week, and even worse, when the breakfast is not for you, but for your younger brother who also has nothing to eat.

This is the reality that many children live in the streets of Venezuela. I had the opportunity to meet Simon, the older of two brothers, Simon is 13 years old and his younger brother is 9 years old, they are both currently living on the streets, their days are spent looking for something to eat, begging on the streets, looking for someone to take pity on them.

Simon, on the other hand, tells me that he likes to work, since he was a child he has had to work in order to help his brother. "It has not been easy, most of my life, I have had to go out on the streets to look for money and food, my mother does not have enough to feed us, my father, I have not met him", a completely fractured family, leads these children to a state of homelessness, lack of affection, at that age I only thought of going to play with my dolls or friends.

Listening to this type of comments really causes pain, worse still I don't understand how many times I have been ungrateful, I despise a good meal, simply because I don't like some food, these children have had to go out on the street in search of almost anything. No matter if it is cold, no matter if flies have landed on it.

Simón is a child capable of demonstrating that it doesn't matter if he has to work, the important thing is to feed his brother, I wanted to ask him about his family, his answer was stronger than the previous one, "What family? If since I can remember, my family is my brother, my mother does not take care of us, she sends us to the street all day long, my grandmother does not love us because my mother had a fight with her, as if we were to blame", the story of these children is truly sad, the worst thing is that society is in charge of sinking them even further. By not taking them into account and being unfriendly to them. Children who more than anything else need to feel loved.

This is how these little ones live, the truth is that they have allowed their photos to be taken, with only one condition, to get them food, and they also want their complaint to be made public, as they have tried to speak to the authorities on several occasions and have had no luck. The idea of all this is that it goes around the world, people should know how the youth in Venezuela are suffering, many young girls are leading a carefree life, then they get pregnant and end up leaving these young people to their fate.

They have no choice but to go on, thinking that their days will be the same or worse, because sometimes they can't get anything to eat. Simón also says that many of his companions on the streets have already fallen into drugs, encouraged by others, to go ahead and enter a dangerous world.

Another picture to forget, my days are not going to be the same, the way I was used to life has changed, as I see with sadness, the way other people live, these are groups, Simon's friends, these are other children, who also live on the streets, every day walking all day long in search of black bags, where they are lucky to be able to get food.

Some live a life full of luxuries, they don't think that there are people who are going through totally opposite moments, worse still they don't even have a blanket for the night, nor a roof for the rain or the sun, much less the warmth of a home. Even so there are people who make fun of anything, they live thinking every day that they want something different, because they are tired of the same, but these people, living a completely opposite reality, are happy just for a glass of cold water.

¿How many times have we complained because our water is cold? The truth is that these people have had the misfortune of not being able to choose, and worse still, this water is black water. Yes, black water without any treatment sounds disgusting, but it must be even worse to bathe and drink water from it. What these children are going through is really worrying.

It is necessary to make our society aware, we should not echo that murderer, or that one who has raped, but this kind of issue, it is worth that it can be viralized, these children are worth it as all children in the world.

Simon, his brother and another classmate have been asked to keep their faces out of the spotlight, so we can only take these photos, although they are children who live in inhuman conditions, they are quite treatable, they have a sense of humour, but they also have some pretty rough days. Most of the time they are laughing.

Ask about their smile, "our way of being able to go on, is to see life as a game, we must try to make it less tragic, because we don't want to be sad, we don't want to be pitiful, we are living like this because of bad luck, but we are not bad either".

The perspective they have of their life seems more like a defence mechanism, they don't accept that they are living in a precarious situation, they don't like to be looked at with pity, even worse, if someone gives them a gift and they do it out of pity they don't accept it.

A look like that, no doubt she needs affection, I wish I could say that it is all a set up, but no. The reality is one, she is an angel. The reality is one, he is an angel living in a precarious condition, living on the streets, without parents, only friends (children just like him, living a deplorable life). All for lack of his parents.

In the calamities of life, I thought I had seen the worst, worse is to see a look so sad, a look without any colour, as it has happened, as it has lost the colour, those eyes need the magic, the joy. We can't help but see so much sadness.

Although the worst of all this is that the real culprits continue to do their thing, the parents of these children are the ones who should be living a life like this, not their children, unfortunately life is like that, the broken dishes are paid by others. While the real bad guys are still free and without sin.

I have decided to show this reality, I would like to be able to consent to people, it is very good to have a child. Bringing a child into life can be a very rewarding feeling, but it is not always so, if we do it in the wrong conditions, a lot happens to these children.

NOTA: You all know how important it is for a child to be born under a roof, to have a united family, to be appreciated, loved and pampered, to have the opportunity to choose what he/she wants and what he/she doesn't want, but even more that he/she can really develop, we as parents are guides, we can't make our children learn by hitting them, because there are things that they probably won't understand, maybe because of their level of maturity. Now, what happens with these children who find themselves on the streets, without any maternal or paternal warmth to cover them and tell them that everything is going to be alright. We must try to help where we can because the social impact this has is unprecedented, as is the fact that they have no one to trust because the adult who could, has gone and left them.