About Us

 Why We Exist:
Southern Cross Humanitarian, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is committed to sustainable global development by providing homes of opportunity for street children in Latin America.

There are 100 million street children in the world. Forty million, or 40%, live in Latin America. While Latin America only has 8% of the world population, it has 40% of the street children. Mexico City, the largest city in the world, has some 2 million street children alone. Street children are called gamines (urchins) in Colombia, pajaros fruteros (fruit birds) in Peru, and marginais (nonessentials), disposables, and abandonados in Brazil. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, we called them ninos de goma (glue kids, because they consumed inhalants to abate their hunger and cope). In Peru, street children have been adopted out and taken to Italy or Switzerland where they were put into a comatose state and their organs were harvested. In Colombia, two decades of guerrilla wars have left one million children internally displaced or refugees. Some 7,000 children were conscripted as "child soldiers." Even ten years ago, most of Brazil's street children expected to be killed before they turned 18 years old: between 4 and 5 adolescents are murdered daily and every 12 minutes a child is beaten. Considered to be bad for business, Brazilian store owners hired off-duty police officers or professional killers to eliminate the "disposable children." In 2000, the UN passed the Millennium Development Goals resolution. These are eight goals to achieve by the year 2015. In addition to these eight, the Latin American & Caribbean region of UNICEF added several others including this one:

Goal 14: Prevent and sanction those forms of violence affecting children and adolescents with the aim of eradicating them, including in particular, intra-family violence, sexual exploitation, rape, sexual abuse and harassment, pornography, traffic and sale of children, their organs, their detention, kidnapping, illegal adoptions, and the participation of boys and girls in armed conflicts as well as collateral consequences such as forced displacement, and other forms of separation from their social and family environment. (2010)

Our mission advocates that resolution. We work in developing nations of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. (Bolivia is sometimes labled Landlocked Least Developed Nation [LLDN] status.)


Our Mission:
Southern Cross Humanitarian builds sustainable environments of security, stability and hope for street children in Latin America. We do this by creating self-sustaining model homes and centers providing for physiological (food, medical), safety (shelter, clothes), belonging (positive, spiritual environment), and esteem (education and trade skills) needs. Perhaps you will recognize this mission and pyramid as A. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

By utilizing new technology in administration and sustainable development, we provide for the first three levels with efficiency. By implementing evidence-base practice in therapy and modern curriculum in education combined with love, children under our care first thrive, then flourish, and later self-actualize, become contributing members of society.


Our Logo:
The red Andean cross with the hole in the center is called "Chakana". This Incan representation of the Southern Cross constellation was described as the symbolic power to "puentear" or "to bridge" heaven and earth. Today, Southern Cross Humanitarian uses the Chakana as our symbol as we bridge cultures - extending our reach from those who have to those who have not.


 Resources:
Those wishing to become more familiar with street children's issues are referred to the following sites, studies, and books:

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