The regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean is based in Lima, Peru, and operates through its 75 partners, mainly non-governmental organizations in Argentina, Brazil, Belize, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Since 1977, Save the Children Sweden has been working in Latin America improving the conditions of children’s lifes through the promotion of health right, as well as supporting children living in the streets and strengthening organizations of working children.
In the last five years, Save the Children Sweden has taken important actions in different countries regarding the legal prohibition of humiliating and corporal punishment towards children, fostering positive disciplinary methods through social and media campaigns, workshops and seminars, etc.
And concrete achievements have now resulted from these efforts. At the end of 2007, in just one month's time, Uruguay, Venezuela passed laws aimed at explicitly prohibiting this form of violence as disciplinary method for children at home, school and detention centers.
But corporal punishment represents just one aspect of the violence that children in Latin America face everyday. We also fight against trafficking and sexual exploitation through web based systems that allow us to identify and report people involved in these crimes.
Since Latin America is constantly affected by disasters, prevention is one of our priorities; we work with schools so children could learn how to implement a safety classroom as well as how to act in emergency situations.
Other important initiatives
Save the Children Sweden encourage local organiszations and states to follow up the recommendations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Media is a strong actor in Latin America and our partners are training journalists on how to report more ethically about children.
Regional work offers a better impact
By taking a regional approach we can share the experiences of a successful project in one country with many others. On this matter, adults and specifically children and young people participate actively in their countries during national elections, giving their opinions about how the state should solve problems that affects them; or expressing what should be the priorities in the public budget. These initiatives have been succeed because they received timely information about related campaigns in other countries.