Sunshine and suffering on the streets of Brazil

This is just one ugly face of a country whose rampant inflation has forced millions of people to seek refuge on the streets, armed with only the ability to steal, sell drugs or prostitute themselves to survive.

Nothing could have prepared Paula Kaniuk - who helped start the Nightsafe project to help the homeless in Blackburn - for the level of degradation she was to encounter on her trip to Brazil.

Surrounded by breathtaking rain forests and lapped by the ocean's surf, the sun-baked port of Santos in southern Brazil is a polluted hell-hole of crumbling high-rise flats and shanty towns with sewage running down the street.

Drug barons dubbed "fathers-of-the-Street" run the city, which is the size of Blackburn, Hyndburn and Burnley combined.

It is inhabited by 475,000 people and the "fathers" offer protection and food in return for the selling of drugs.

Even doctors have to pay them in order to enter the city and treat the sick.

Rarely does any poverty-stricken child escape the irresistible pull of crack cocaine, a drug which is very cheap in Brazil.

Thousands of children living on the streets, lacking any parental care or support, are serious crack addicts.

They lay sprawled on every street corner, out of their minds on drugs. "I've never seen so many people living on the streets and they sleep where they drop. We had to step over them. It was really sad," said Paula.

Many others are written off by the authorities, who leave the homeless to fend for themselves and often bundle children into vans and drive them thousands of miles to the next state to get rid of them.

Without money, a home, parents who loved them, state benefits and any hope for the future, others turn to glue to block out their cruel predicament.

"Young children had bags containing glue slung around their necks. They would spend the day sniffing it.," said Paula.

"These young people are tough and hard. They have to be. They have no morals or values and, although they can be really welcoming, they wouldn't think twice about stabbing you in the back if they needed to."

Some children aged 12 or 13 possess bigger guns than the police.

Paula watched the colourful and vibrant local carnival during her four-week stay, unaware that 52 people were murdered during the celebrations.

The 45-year-old and her partner live in Wigan. They were invited to the country by English teacher Jose Augustus Rodrigues when he visited Nightsafe a few years ago.

Jose attempts to stretch out a caring hand to the street children. He works in projects set up, after years of neglect, for the homeless children.

They projects are a direct result of pressure from outraged world leaders.

Paula spoke to leaders of street children projects and learned how they were trying to tackle the problem of homelessness.

She spoke about Nightsafe's attempts to deal with people surviving on the streets in Lancashire.

Paula said: "The children are paid to attend workshops and learn skills such as woodwork and metalwork and learn about morals, discipline and things such as HIV and AIDS awareness. Some nine-year-olds are experienced printers. They are allowed to use crack on the courses, otherwise none of them would come. They all go back on the streets at night."

She met many of the crack addicts, who made T-shirts and wrote sad, moving letters and poetry to the homeless people at Nightsafe.

"Many are about broken hearts," said Paula.

"Most street children have psychological problems as most were abandoned by their parents.

"They are quite sad that nobody loves them but on the outside they appear happy."

"It was quite a privilege to meet them," said Paula.

"They tried to be happy but had nothing. One girl had a Barbie doll with one leg and it was her whole world.

"The kids are not that different from teenagers in Britain.

"They have the same hopes and dreams but, for many street children, that is all they are."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.