Rise and shine is a Christian program, focused on the children and communities most marginalized of the Colombian society, working with volunteer personel under the covering of Youth With a Mission colombia recognised by Personería Jurídica Especial Resolución 1128 del 15 de August of 1996, conferred by the Ministry of the interior, located in Bogotá, Colombia. Our number Nit is: 830031394–0.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
Beginning in 1996 we entered the sector called “El Cartucho”, a community established for more than 30 years, in which the majority of homeless people, and rejected by society, displaced from different cities of the country were found, because of the political, social, armed and economic violence which Colombia has suffered over the last 50 years.
From the year 2.000, the solution of the national and distict governmental councils was to demolish the sector ( by stages which lasted three years), to make a green zone there, a park, but this did not solve the problem, but only shifted the population that was living there, into other areas such as San Bernardo and Las Cruces, and others, taking with them their problems and misery.

JUSTIFICATION:
The population that used to live in El Cartucho area in the centre of Bogotá, are people whose rights have been compromised.

• The right to have a life of dignity, to not have to live in over crowded situations.
• The right to an education, to not be marginalized by society and have an integral human development (Physical, spiritual, emotional, social, intellectual, and work.)
• The right to health, to have access to nutritional and feeding programs.
• The right to a job that gives dignity as a person, as the majority have incomes of less than US$2 (TWO DOLLARS A DAY), for a family which generally consists of more than 5 people.
• The right to recreation, access to cultural formation and sport for children, and youth.
It is a population that has some very serious problems. The majority of the adults are involved in prostitution, recycling, delinquency, the trafficing of all kinds of drugs, trafficing of arms, alcoholism, and also there is a high level of family violence, sexual abuse of children, work abuse of minors as well. Another problem that adds to this drama is the quantity of pregnant adolecents or young mothers, many as a result of rapes. The living quarters are ghettos with many rooms. The families live in one room where the entire family live together.
In such situations, the children loose everything: the joy of being children, the right to be educated, the possibity of dreaming of a future, the possibilty of discovering that they are worthy of being loved and respected for who they are.

CHILDREN HAVE THE FOLLOWING PROBLEMS:
Malnutrition – daily abandonment, lack of schooling, a loss of values- loss of free time watching television- living in the streets without any supervision from parents. The smallest spend their time locked up alone all day in their rooms – learning anti values – values learned by observation of the gangs – poverty - begging- drug addiction- sexual abuse- child abuse..
In this context of misery and pain the life of the children is hard. It is a life, yet at the same time it is a death. Many of the children are in danger of dying of malnutrition, from diseases and abandonment, if not by all that the streets bring to them.
The aforementioned are reasons why this community needs to be attended to in all of its areas (Physical, spiritual, emotional,social, workplace), with the aim of generating an internal change to the problem, that would result in the eradication of all of these evils, and would propagate an integral individual and community change for the good of the individual, the family, the community and the country, with our co-operation as a program, with the help of the same sufferering agents of the problem, external helpers, and donors.
For this reason we have established, as of 2003, a place to work from in the neighborhoods of San Bernardo and Las Cruces so that from there we can attend to, and help be a solution to the problems of this population.

GENERAL OBJECTIVE:
To Honour God through transformation and the integral restoration of children , and their families and communities in a high risk situation, impacting the community favourably, the family, and the state in such a way that throughout it all we can constitute and guaruntee the rights of children in Colombia.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:
1.-To deeply understand the problems of children in the streets, their family, and communities.
2.- To Establish permanent contact with the children and their families and in general with the community of the neighbourhoods of San Bernardo and Las Cruces which would bring us to a mutual friendship of confidence.
3.- Offer the children, and their families lacking opportunities and in vulnerable conditions, the assistance and capacitation necessary which would enable them to have an improvement in their quality of life.
4.- Educate the children, firstly in re-socialization, scholastic levelling and informal academic preparation, to initiate a process that would later lead into formal education.
5.- Offer an alternative living situation to the children, when the influence of the family is highly negative for the development of their lives and who would fulfil the necessary criteria requirements established by the program.
6.- Motivate the families towards trying to improve , and to be restored.
7.- To Conduct training and workshops with the parents and solo mothers to have positive interpersonal relationships, positive child raising, conflict resolution, development of a positive self esteem, prevent abuse and sexual abuse of children, the importance of the family, prevention or addictions such as alcohol, drugs and adictive games.
8.- To sensitize the society in general about the value of and the suffering of the children at risk.
9.- Declare before the society in general our responsibility and commitment towards children at risk.

THE POPULATION
The population which the program is working with is located in the communities of the areas ofSan Bernardo and Las Cruces in the centre of Bogotá, with socio economic levels of 0 and 1.
They are children between 2 and 16 years of age.
A the moment we are working consistantly through all of the stages with 40 children in crisis, and 2 in residence, 15 mothers and three fathers of families; Our desire is to reach more children and families as the resources permit.