Instead, we should attack poverty at its roots. When the economy is good, investment in children's programs goes up, and when the economy is bad, investment goes down. So the welfare of our children becomes dependent on economics rather than being seen as a fundamental human right. It borders on immoral how we play with the lives of our children. The key to reducing poverty is, in many ways, expanding human rights.
Human rights begins with breakfast.
When people are free to speak and learn and make real choices, amazing things happen. Once hopeless people find hope, and turn it into something tangible, they imagine a future and then make it happen. Human rights should not be a luxury for a few, but an essential for all. And despite the lack of human rights for the world's street children, and despite all the cruelty inflicted on these children in situations created by adults, they still have the courage to smile. This past year Casa Alianza gave more than 9,000 children in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica a second chance.