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Background on SDC
SDC is an organization composed of human rights advocates who are dedicated to protect and promote the rights of children. Since its inception, the Center provides services to street children based in Quezon City and Mandaluyong.
Brief History
The idea to establish the Streetchildren Development Center (SDC) was hatched by a group of professionals involved in urban poor development and human rights advocacy. Working with the urban poor communities, they came to realize that children growing under conditions of poverty are very vulnerable. Many of such children become dwellers of and workers on streets. Recognizing that the children are the future of the country, this group of professionals has aspired to contribute to the efforts geared towards building a better community for these children. They were especially concerned with helping the street children reclaim their dignity as persons. To act on this aspiration, the group initially considered establishing a training center for the children. At that time, most of the members of the group thought that setting up this center would be premature and besides, they had doubts on how responsive it would be to the actual needs and situation of the street children. They also thought of organizing a paralegal center to protect the rights of the children. But most of the members thought that it would not address the concrete need of the street children to process "their pains and hurts, their feeling of neglect, abandonment, and being unloved." The core group then expanded; joined by other human rights advocates. Together they personally immersed with the street children and identified possible courses of actions. It was through their immersions that they finally decided to focus on conducting values education for street children to help them process their diverse adverse experiences, clarify their values, and identify alternatives to their street life. With values education as its central concern, SDC was formally established in 1992 as a non-stock, non-profit organization registered under the Securities and Exchange Commission. Operations actually took off in 1994 with Quezon City and Mandaluyong as the primary areas covered.
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