The problem is millions of homeless children on Brazil’s city streets—a killing field where a nation’s youth survive as commodities for drugs, sex, and violent crime. In the late ‘80s, when Philip Smith and his father, Jack, first heard about the plight of Brazil’s street children, off-duty police were becoming after-dark death squads, systematically exterminating thousands of the “public nuisances” for local business owners. Fortunately, the government was able get a handle on the situation. But for a child on the streets, the children’s life expectancy still amounts to three to five years.
An estimated 7 to 8 million Brazilian children are on the streets—living, breathing refuse of desperately poor homes, where parents have turned to drugs, alcohol, and crime. And this is the world of Hope Unlimited—organized in 1991 to reclaim and parent the lost children of Brazil.
Over the past 30 years, reaching deeply into one life at a time, Hope Unlimited has embraced thousands of children—including their next generations. And when Hope succeeds, the cycle is broken: a child grows up to become a productive and contributing member of society. Even more importantly, they have become loving and Godly parents. Fully 92% of the boys and girls who completed the residential program at Hope Unlimited are employed today.
The Hope Story
The problem is millions of homeless children on Brazil’s city streets—a killing field where a nation’s youth survive as commodities for drugs, sex, and violent crime. In the late ‘80s, when Philip Smith and his father, Jack, first heard about the plight of Brazil’s street children, off-duty police were becoming after-dark death squads, systematically exterminating thousands of the “public nuisances” for local business owners. Fortunately, the government was able get a handle on the situation. But for a child on the streets, the children’s life expectancy still amounts to three to five years.
An estimated 7 to 8 million Brazilian children are on the streets—living, breathing refuse of desperately poor homes, where parents have turned to drugs, alcohol, and crime. And this is the world of Hope Unlimited—organized in 1991 to reclaim and parent the lost children of Brazil.
Over the past 30 years, reaching deeply into one life at a time, Hope Unlimited has embraced thousands of children—including their next generations. And when Hope succeeds, the cycle is broken: a child grows up to become a productive and contributing member of society. Even more importantly, they have become loving and Godly parents. Fully 92% of the boys and girls who completed the residential program at Hope Unlimited are employed today.