December 19, 2002 - Springfield News: Brazil RPCV Bob Crites creates "Students helping Street Kids" for South America

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Headlines: Peace Corps Headlines - 2002: 12 December 2002 Peace Corps Headlines: December 19, 2002 - Springfield News: Brazil RPCV Bob Crites creates "Students helping Street Kids" for South America

By Admin1 (admin) on Thursday, December 19, 2002 - 10:32 am: Edit Post

Brazil RPCV Bob Crites creates "Students helping Street Kids" for South America





Caption: Bob Crites, SHSKI Founder/President, and Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, Brazilian human rights activist, with Rio students.

Read and comment on this story from the Springfield News on Brazil RPCV Bob Crites who created "Students helping Street Kids" for American students in elementary, middle and high schools to "adopt" Brazilian street children in tenuous situations and raise money to help pay for their tuition, books, uniforms and food. Crites created Students Helping Street Kids as a service project to give local children a more global perspective, while at the same time helping children in need in foreign countries. Read the story at:

Teacher Bob Crites' fund-raising lands him in L.A.*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Teacher Bob Crites' fund-raising lands him in L.A.
By Kim Sullivan

Students Helping Street Kids International, a program established by Briggs Middle School counselor Bob Crites, is gaining a little star power this week in Tinseltown.

Through Students Helping Street Kids, students at elementary, middle and high schools "adopt" Brazilian street children in tenuous situations and raise money to help pay for their tuition, books, uniforms and food.

Crites, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Brazil and associate Peace Corps director in Guatemala, developed the idea after a trip to Brazil in 1996.

While circling above San Francisco International Airport, Crites picked up a copy of "Hemispheres," United Airlines' in-flight magazine, and read an article about Yvonne de Mello, a Brazilian human rights activist who works with abandoned and runaway street children.

Later that year he met with de Mello and toured the favelas where millions of children live, outside Rio. In Brazil, Crites said, there is no formal welfare system and street children learn life on the streets as beggars, drug runners and often times prostitutes.

Sadly, he said, he's heard countless stories of drug overdoses, sexual abuse and even tales of death squads hired to kill children for local shopkeepers whom the children steal from.

Crites created Students Helping Street Kids as a service project to give local children a more global perspective, while at the same time helping children in need in foreign countries.

On Tuesday night, Crites attended a fund-raiser to benefit de Mello's work at the luxurious Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. The Hollywood event was organized by producer Caroline Zelder, who is raising funds to film a documentary about de Mello's work over the last 19 years in the more than 700 favelas, or shantytowns, surrounding Rio de Janeiro.

Crites, who flew to California Monday, said late last week that the $1,000-a-ticket event would be truly "star-studded." The expected list of co-hosts, he said, included supermodel Cindy Crawford; actress Melanie Griffith and her husband, actor Antonio Banderas; and actors Benjamin Bratt and Kevin Costner.

In addition, Crites was invited to speak and draw attention to Students Help-ing Street Kids International, which is in 29 schools, including Springfield schools Camp Creek, Mount Vernon, Thurston and Yolanda elementary schools, Agnes Stewart and Briggs middle schools and Thurston and Springfield high schools.

Crites said he was excited to be part of the Hollywood event, but he was even more excited that it would bring more exposure to Students Helping Street Kids International.

"This could be a really wonderful opportunity for us," he said.

For more information on Students Helping Street Kids International, call 686-1396, or visit the nonprofit organization's Web site at www. helpthekids.org.
Learn More about Students helping Street Kids



Read more about "Students helping Street Kids" at:

"Students helping Street Kids"

Our Goals
Students Helping Street Kids International is a tax exempt, 501(c)(3), non-profit corporation established in 1997 with the following goals:

* To provide funding for educational scholarships to needy children in developing countries to attend school in their own countries.
* To provide funding for other projects that benefit children in the developing world.
* To provide a service learning opportunity to those students who get involved in fundraising to help the disadvantaged children in developing countries.

Our Funding
The principal source of donated funds are students in American schools and elsewhere who want to make a difference in the lives of children living in poverty in the developing world.

Cooperative fund-raising efforts between student groups and private-sector groups and individuals are encouraged.

About Service Learning
Students Helping Street Kids International views service learning as a powerful tool for youth development. Community service becomes service learning when there is a deliberate connection made between service and learning opportunities.

In funding scholarships and other projects for children living in extreme poverty in developing countries and through the learning for which this can be a catalyst, students are enriching themselves as well as causing a profound and positive effect upon the lives of those children in developing countries who receive the benefits of their efforts.

To find out more about service learning, visit the National Service Learning Clearinghouse.



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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Brazil; Service; Special Interests - Youth Organizations

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