Youth and Violence

Viva Rio launched the "Guide to Best Practices in COAV", a collection of 55 success stories involving youth and children in armed violence in in non-war zones. At the launch, which brought together experts in the field, it became clear that the challenges are shared in different parts of the world and that solutions can be replicated and adapted to local contexts.

Nicaragua's Center for the Prevention of Violence (CEPREV) bases its work on asking men and women to forget violence and wager on a constructive and peaceful experience of manhood. The method runs workshops and individual counselling sessions, it has met with great success, doing away with 80% of the gangs it has worked with. Psychologist Iveth Espino Altamiro discusses its work with Comunidad Segura.

Haitian youth have become involved in direct armed conflict since 2003. Child soldiers—as they are called by the community and also among themselves—play different roles, which vary according to age, gender or even abilities.

In Rio de Janeiro, an initiative designed to promote the social inclusion of young people at risk in shantytowns ruled by drug gangs, teaches youths about their rights and helps them overcome boundaries that separate them from each other and from the rest of the city. It is called Protejo.

They aren't being punished. Quite the opposite, for 200 thousand children in Guatemala to go to back to school in the weekend, in the Escuelas Abiertas program, has become an opportunity to show off their talents, play and to learn the basics of leadership. An innovative program against social exclusion.

Girls are playing an increasingly prominent role in gangs in the Federal District. Today, gangs have all female groups and sections and women are performing more clearly defined functions, no longer relegated to a secondary role. But gender stereotypes continue to characterize the social networks of youth.

Program trains youth in Guatemala to become multipliers of peace. Their mission is to promote the prevention of gun violence in their communities, schools and churches. Every year, approximately one hundred volunteers are recruited and trained.

The desire to belong. To belong to a pandilla, a mara, a barra brava.
That is what drives Central American youths, as noted by filmmaker
Marco Nicoletti while recently shooting a documentary for the NGO Interpeace, that works with building lasting peace in various conflicted areas around the world.

Young offenders in Brazil have the right to religious counseling, and in the state of Rio de Janeiro, the service is offered in 22 detention centers as noted by a recent study. Much however, is left to the interpretation of the administrators involved, since guidelines do not determine the exact nature of the services to be provided by religious denominations. The study found that Evangelical/Protestant organizations are both more present in custodial centers than other religions, and are also comparatively least knowledgeable of the legal rights of young offenders.

More than money, what attracts young people to the drug trade is guns.
They see guns as a way to get girls and to come out of invisibility. 
These are the some of recent findings of the CESeC study, “Meninos do
Rio” that went directly to the shantytowns and poorer areas of Rio de
Janeiro and changed a few long-standing misconceptions.