Today, more than ever, Bolivian institutes are overcrowded. According to official estimates, more than 19.000 Bolivian children are abandoned.

There are very few alternatives to institutes: foster care is practically non-existent, national adoption is still at the very beginning and international adoption is in a stall phase. All the efforts to give back the children their right to be sons and daughters turned into a privilege bestowed to a small number of them. The biggest part of those children is doomed to grow up between the walls of orphanages, without a proper assistance to help them satisfy and properly develop their affective, biological and social needs.

Il Melograno Bolivia (Granada Bolivia) is a network of groups and associations of former institutionalized youths and adoptive parents coming from 3 Bolivian towns: LaPaz, Cochabamba and Potosì. The network members work hard to improve abandoned children's living conditions and aim to become their  spokesmen, since the voice of these unfortunate youths is seldom heard by a government that is not able to defend their rights.

We do not know for sure how many adolescents leave the Bolivian childhood protection system every year; moreover, there are no official studies dealing with the difficulties that youths may face in trying to start an autonomous life, without any specific preparation or guidance to accompany them in this phase of their life.

Some youths, among this large number, managed to make their way to a normal life. They are special people that, moreover, use some of their time to care about others, thus starting to make a difference by helping younger people to avoid the same problems that affected them before.

"We firmly believe that, by sharing our experience and by working side by side both with the youths that still live in institutes and with social institutions, we can effectively change the state of things, in an effort to make the life of both institutionalized children and care-leavers easier and better. Our activities aim at making abandonment history by 2036, both in Bolivia and in the whole world."

With our minds set on this goal, we took part to Monte Colombo's Conference in Italy organised by Amici dei Bambini, to reflect, together with other young people coming from all over the world, about the assumption of responsibilities and about the role of participation and active citizenship as practical tools to be used in the struggle against abandonment.

Each one of us has his/her own personal experience but we all have something in common, being either adopted children, care-leavers or adoptive parents. At the meeting, everyone was willing to create an atmosphere of friendship, solidarity and enthusiasm. During the meeting we shared our dreams, experiences and ideas. We also discussed our best-practises and we all showed that it is possible to cooperate in harmony, in spite of reciprocal differences, working together towards a common goal and overcoming cultural and linguistic barriers.

Individuals and groups can feel deserted in their action against abandonment and may think that their efforts are not bringing concrete results. Meeting people that work in the same field, but in different environments, allowed us to realize that everyone is giving his/her contribution and made us understand that the struggle against abandonment is not a recent one but it is going on since quite a long time and it already obtained many results. We also realized that every single, although small, action is important and can lead to some significant consequences.

There are several reasons why it is very important to keep in touch with other groups, such as to get reciprocally inspired through mutual experiences, to give the right importance to everyone's work and also to get further motivation by seeing our collective action achieving some goals. All these things also help us to credit our work with the importance it deserves.

It has been very important for us to take part in Monte Colombo's meeting, because we have been able to meet the people that believe in us and support out campaigns.

At the end of the two-day meeting, we all came to the conclusion that it is necessary to double our efforts in a short time and to organize our action. Everyone must take part in it: parents, youths, state institutions and boards, the government, students, teachers, housewives, etc... . Each one of us can take an active role in helping abandoned children not to be left alone by themselves once again.

We are very grateful for the opportunity that has been given to 2 representatives of 'il Melograno' Bolivia to take part in the two-days meeting in Monte Colombo (Italy) with Amici dei Bambini. Our participation has brought positive results, and the outcomes will be shared with other groups during the fourth national meeting of Granada Bolivia that will be held in November 2011 and will give new lifeblood to our activities and will light up our enthusiasm.

by Yessenia Medrano and Anahí Moreno (Il Melograno Bolivia)

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