THE HUMMINGBIRD ACTIVITY CENTRE

Preventing more children from hitting the streets is as important as recuperating those already on the streets.

Hummingbird's Street Migration Prevention Programme attends more than 600 children and young people in its activities.

The programmes of The Hummingbird Activity Centre are primarily preventive in nature, directed at community children and young people and promote the confidence, character, competence, and "connectedness" of that population to their family,
peers, and community.

These programmes provide a range of support and services in such areas as vocational training, health education, recreation, cultural tolerance and understanding, racial reconciliation, artistic expression, environmental awareness, and the development of leadership, conflict resolution, and decision-making skills.


The Hummingbird Activity Centre drawn by 7 year old Matheus Aparecido Alves Borges.

In addition, the centre supports the demands of rehabilitation programmes serving the needs of street children coming off the streets.

The programmes work to increase global awareness of children and youth issues, strengthen the organizational skills of youth programme leaders, and promote greater knowledge and application of best practices for young people, increasing the effectiveness, scale, and sustainability of proven approaches to meeting young people's needs.


Youth Entrepreneurs lead the way: Hummingbird offers opportunities to local youth, training them to become advocates through their own actions for social change in their own community.

In between future postings we will present you with a pictorial view of some of the activities going on at our Hummingbird Activity Centre. The team of young entrepreneurs leading the programme comes from our local community where we attend more than 600 young people and their families. These talented youth mentors have themselves suffered the consequences of poverty and social injustice and are only too well aware of the negative effects this has on their community.

Most of the street children in the city of São Paulo come from underprivileged communities such as the one surrounding our activity centre. It is therefore important that we provide programmes that prevent other at-risk children from hitting the streets.