Cómo crear un Futuro Chido para los Niños de la Calle: Rogelio Padilla at TEDxZapopan
you are a little human being, a warrior of life who has fought important battles and emerged victorious in all of them, and not only that, you are already thinking, speaking, and acting for others, continue your journey and let nothing and no one steal your dreams. Meeting him reminded me of the 11- year-old boy I was at one time in my life, and suddenly, in an instant, all the sadness in the world fell upon me. My father died, and that would mark my entire life. And there, also being very young, I began a great argument and fight with God, and I reproached Him again and again for having abandoned a good 33-year-old man and for having struck, struck, struck with all the sadness in the world a child who at that time only played, dreamed, and was happy. I had to rise from my own soul's death and fight many battles for each day of my life, as the Silvio Rodríguez song says, to rise fresh and healed and continue the journey. Thus, from a very young age, living intensely, my conscience and vocation of service to others were born within me, and also an inhalation gave me hope for To change the world and make this planet a cool home for everyone, where, for example, there is peace, where everyone has a job, a home, food, and clean water. But there is still much to be done in this world of some 900 million hungry people, overflowing with selfishness and selfish people. And yet, my stubborn hope continues. Perhaps that's why I wrote a phrase about three years ago that summarizes the way I've lived since I was 15 years old to change the world: I change, I change today. And acting accordingly, since then, all my time, all my energy, all my commitment, and my three talents— if I have any—I have dedicated to being involved in good causes and helping vulnerable groups. And so, amidst so many comings and goings, cyclist and Don Quixote, I wander through life. I arrived at what would become my cause, one that has lasted 29 years. 29 years of my life. In 1984, I accepted the government's offer to create a new program for street children, children of flesh and blood, loneliness and cold, hopelessness, children who present you with a bleak future, small human figures. Created from strong clay, neither the cold nor the night nor a life without a future can break them. Survivors to live or die in the instant; saying tomorrow is not for the wretched. I quickly realized that if I truly wanted to do something for these street children, I necessarily had to invent a tool that depended exclusively on our talents, on the hearts and wills I could gather, and not on political variables that one cannot control, even if one is a little boss of I don't know what in the government's organizational chart. For these sons and daughters of the street, always with the complicity of many, with the solidarity of many, I forged a tool for hope: the support movement for abandoned minors, better known by its acronym, Mamá AC. I am the oldest, or Rogelio, a title I wear with great pride, but one that no university gave me; the street gave it to me, and those who on the street have developed true doctorates in survival: the street children. And this life of theirs, this tragic destiny, I want to paint it in another way, with a provocative phrase, in any case, a provocative one that stirs conscience, so that you have an idea of the reality from which we are inventing the Hope, and she pronounced it in a way that seemed almost like a curse, because that's the reality: child of poverty, poor on the sidewalks, poor living like this. Before, poverty doesn't kill you, and poor, equal to other unhappy people. This is the reality, and this life sentence, in many ways, this tragic destiny, we have interrupted. We have broken the chain and built hope for hundreds and hundreds of street children. What is the transformative power of Mom's pedagogy in the educator's revolution? We don't practice it in the sentimental sense of the word, but as the main nutrient and most powerful component that makes human beings happy and extraordinary and places them in the best physical and emotional condition to serve others. From this condition and choice, we, the poor, every day in the mission, radicalize optimism, hope, talent, and commitment. We do n't put in something; we put in everything. Ours is a cause, and in it, there is no room for neutrality. Ours is a demanding friendship, yes, but an unconditional friendship and solidarity, yes. Here's another phrase that sums up the point. From where do we start? If their cold doesn't improve, if their story doesn't hurt me, I will be so many things, but never a street educator, never a bad rust that defends, protects, changes, and saves, in many cases, the lives of children, boys and girls. And all this necessarily has to do with love, a word so difficult to pronounce these days, and to make it become everyone's action so that every day we all get up to sow the world with right actions and that we can change this world in just seven days. First thesis and declaration: In Mom, we are effective because we are necessarily effective in this work. We have mixed science and love. With these characteristics, we build hope every day. First antithesis: Many times, government programs only have money and cold buildings and teachers and professionals who quickly become bureaucratized or dehumanized. With these characteristics, it is impossible to provide good services and sustainable alternatives to vulnerable groups. Second thesis: To fight against the poverty of these children, their hopelessness, zero self-esteem, and other problems of the street such as theft, drugs, prostitution... Begging and illness lead us to a delicate mission every day: to carry out liberating educational work with medium and long-term results. Today we are not a promise; we are a reality that shelters, heals, feeds, and prepares children for life. Second antithesis: institutional haste and lack of continuity in government programs often lead them to focus only on immediate, apparent results and to develop a kind of addiction to producing statistics and starting programs again and again. Third, and I almost forgot this thing, okay, third thesis: no man is born 100% good or 100% bad. We are what we are based on a series of circumstances that surround us. Through slammed doors and lack of opportunities, we can break the will of any human being subjected to that condition. With the lessons of motherhood, her method and pedagogy, we go to them, to their world, to their hells, and the first thing is to gain their trust and for them to discover us as allies to change their destiny. In this, we necessarily—I insist, we necessarily—need to mix science and love, and so, again and again, with falls and Raised up with an unconditional mother who never abandons them, a new empowerment is being built for boys and girls, making them fight every day to change their destiny. This will to change and awareness leads them to understand and practice the formula for a great future that we invented: more rights, more duties, more intelligent decision-making, more life projects, more struggle equals a great future. That is, rights plus duties, more intelligent decision-making, more life projects, more struggle equals a future. That's why we are always by their side with all our commitment and knowledge, saying from the heart of this mission, where there is hope and also pain, we cannot leave, nor can we give up. There are boys and girls with different perspectives, with a new gleam where hope appears. Finally, this planet has enough resources and knowledge, philosophies and religions, but it has too much selfishness and selfish people. It needs you, it needs you, it needs you. But remember, with a will to change and to serve, totally radicalized in your new project, change the world. And remember, to change the world, I change. Today, the words of May have been for you.