Leo

Leo comes from a large family with 11 siblings. His parents work in one of the largest markets in Guatemala City, where his mother makes tortillas and his father works as a porter to support the growing family. Family life has been hard - Leo shared that his father struggles with alcohol dependency and had been violent towards him and his siblings. At the end of 2022, Leo decided enough was enough and made the decision to move onto the streets.

Fortunately Leo was well known by Puerta de Esperanza, one of Toybox’s local partners in Guatemala, who run a number of project activities at the market. Over the years, project staff had supported Leo’s parents to try and break the cycle of abuse. When Leo decided to leave home, this existing relationship meant that the project workers were able to work with Leo's parents to find a safe place for him to sleep away from home, while being able to visit and support his parents with work during the day. This has been transformational in Leo’s relationship with his family – allowing them to get along better while giving him the opportunity to continue his studies. Here Leo shares in his own words how his involvement at the project has supported him in his day to day life.

"In my community, there are lots of thieves around and they get angry and hurt you when you don’t have anything of value to give them. The market also has lots of hitmen. Sometimes if someone steals something and gets shot at, you can get hit in the crossfire. There are also a lot of drugs here. I have a friend who takes drugs and one day, I saw how he was drowning under the influence of the drugs and it scared me a lot. I’ve never tried cigarettes or alcohol but I have seen how it affects my father. People always say that when you see things, you repeat them but I don’t want this because everyone suffers when you do this.

Before coming to the project, I had learned how to mistreat people - I was disrespectful even though I was only small. My little brother was also rude, even though he too was only young. I didn’t value the time and work of teachers and didn’t appreciate all the hard work they used to put in.

Now, I feel better. The project has given me the freedom to be free to play with anyone and they have taught me values. I recognise now that I didn’t have good friends before.

I’ve learned about my rights. I didn’t know that people shouldn’t hit me and that I can legally act on my child rights. I’ve also learned about women’s and girls’ rights, knowing now that even when you’re married, you can’t force anyone to do anything.

I feel safe at Puerta de Esperanza, when they give us food to eat, when they help us and when we do activities at the project which I enjoy. Studying and learning makes me feel happy. There are lots of my friends who live near my mum’s house and they aren’t able to learn but I see how much they would love to. I want to graduate from primary school – I can’t fail so I have to focus everything I have on my exams. Dogs make me happy – I don’t know exactly why but I do know I feel that way ever since a dog defended my mum from an attack. Now dogs are very special to me. I want to be a lawyer or a vet when I’m older, but mainly a vet to help the dogs.

If I were the President of Guatemala, I’d change things so that no child ever had to work, or at least not have to work hard, so that all of them could go to school and focus on their studies. I’d also give all the drunk people a rehab centre that they could go to, to help them save their lives. I’d help them get a job because some of them really want to change but they don’t know how to."