Street Children of Ecuador
Headline in this morning’s paper in Guayaquil are that 750,000 children here in Ecuador work in the streets. This is a staggering number, especially when you consider that there are only about twelve million Ecuadorians.
And you see them everywhere. Ten-year-old boys shine shoes. Six-year-old girls stand in intersections selling gum or sweets. They sell pirated CD’s and DVD’s and sunglasses. If they are lucky, they get a job at a supermercado (supermarket) bagging groceries. But others are “street artists” who paint their bodies in metallic paint and do cartwheels in busy intersections for a few coins from the drivers.
These children are from extremely poor families. The average wage in Ecuador is only about $5-6 a day for most manual labor jobs, and most jobs are manual labor. Working six days a week that becomes only about $135-170 a month. In modern Ecuador that is not enough for a family to live on. So Dad works, mom works, and as soon as they can the kids work too.
The trouble is, the parents can’t get better jobs because they don’t have the education. Their kids must work, and go to the miserable public schools where education is fragile, at best. Then the kids go out to work long hours hawking items on the street. They never get a good education so they are restricted to the same jobs their parents get. Which means their children will be working on the streets.
We have a neighborhood handyman, Juan Carlos. Juan Carlos is a smiling man in his mid-twenties. He has a wife and a child and lives with his parents, a not uncommon arrangement. He is illiterate and works for $120 a month doing maintenance on several of the homes on our block. He’s diligent, but has very limited skills. We pay him some to do odd jobs when we need it, and he’s thrilled at the money. Every dollar he makes is a godsend to him and his small family.
It’s caused by a broken education system and an economic system that makes it impossible for poor people to break out of the cycle they are in. Politicians in the States talk about the cycle of poverty. But it’s different in the USA. There, if someone is born in poverty she will have a greater chance to get into drugs, to not graduate high school, to become a welfare mom, to have limited opportunities.
But in the US she does have a chance to make it. If she wants to break that cycle, she can with hard work.
In Ecuador it is impossible, literally impossible to break that cycle. They don’t have limited opportunities, they have no opportunities. And it will stay that way, unless the education and economic systems change radically.
Not this election it won’t.
And you see them everywhere. Ten-year-old boys shine shoes. Six-year-old girls stand in intersections selling gum or sweets. They sell pirated CD’s and DVD’s and sunglasses. If they are lucky, they get a job at a supermercado (supermarket) bagging groceries. But others are “street artists” who paint their bodies in metallic paint and do cartwheels in busy intersections for a few coins from the drivers.
These children are from extremely poor families. The average wage in Ecuador is only about $5-6 a day for most manual labor jobs, and most jobs are manual labor. Working six days a week that becomes only about $135-170 a month. In modern Ecuador that is not enough for a family to live on. So Dad works, mom works, and as soon as they can the kids work too.
The trouble is, the parents can’t get better jobs because they don’t have the education. Their kids must work, and go to the miserable public schools where education is fragile, at best. Then the kids go out to work long hours hawking items on the street. They never get a good education so they are restricted to the same jobs their parents get. Which means their children will be working on the streets.
We have a neighborhood handyman, Juan Carlos. Juan Carlos is a smiling man in his mid-twenties. He has a wife and a child and lives with his parents, a not uncommon arrangement. He is illiterate and works for $120 a month doing maintenance on several of the homes on our block. He’s diligent, but has very limited skills. We pay him some to do odd jobs when we need it, and he’s thrilled at the money. Every dollar he makes is a godsend to him and his small family.
It’s caused by a broken education system and an economic system that makes it impossible for poor people to break out of the cycle they are in. Politicians in the States talk about the cycle of poverty. But it’s different in the USA. There, if someone is born in poverty she will have a greater chance to get into drugs, to not graduate high school, to become a welfare mom, to have limited opportunities.
But in the US she does have a chance to make it. If she wants to break that cycle, she can with hard work.
In Ecuador it is impossible, literally impossible to break that cycle. They don’t have limited opportunities, they have no opportunities. And it will stay that way, unless the education and economic systems change radically.
Not this election it won’t.
posted by Unknown at 9:09 AM
4 Comments:
Hello! My family and I are moving to Guayaquil in 2014. I am looking to get a job teaching English there. Can you provide me with any schools that are looking for certified teachers? Also, what kind of certification(s) is/are best for Guayaquil?
Thanks!
Kurtis
Hello! My family and I are moving to Guayaquil in 2014. I am looking to get a job teaching English there. Can you provide me with any schools that are looking for certified teachers? Also, what kind of certification(s) is/are best for Guayaquil?
Thanks!
Kurtis
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Hello! My family and I are moving to Guayaquil in 2014. I am looking to get a job teaching English there. Can you provide me with any schools that are looking for certified teachers? Also, what kind of certification(s) is/are best for Guayaquil?
Thanks!
Kurtis
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