El Alto

Country information

The SOS Children's Village El Alto is located about 4000 m above sea level in the town El Alto next to the city of La Paz. El Alto has the highest demographic growth of any Bolivian town, more than 50% of its population is less than 19 years old. This extreme demographic development began 1970s and was due to increased migration of people from the countryside. From the middle of the 1980s, this development continued when many companies in the Bolivian mining centres Oruro and Potosí were closed down after becoming unprofitable. Numerous unemployed miners together with their families moved to El Alto and to the city of La Paz seeking jobs and for better living conditions. Since the improvement of infrastructure could not keep pace with the increasing number of inhabitants and in spite of undeniable progress, there is still a marked lack of public schooling and health facilities and traffic routes, and, in some places, adequate water supplies. More than 70% of the families of El Alto live in poverty, life expectancy is only 62 years and more than 88% of the population is illiterate. The extreme poverty of the population leads to malnutrition for many children, bad performance in school due to frequent absence, child labour as well as alcohol and drug abuse among young people and adults. Violence and the collapse of the family unit are widely known problems, every day children are abandoned by their parents.