Ravaging through garbage dumps is a daily routine for children in Guatemala

The sun rises in Guatemala, and Cesar, an 8-year boy puts on his red Pokémon cartoon baseball cap, his little grey cotton sweater and a backpack. Cesar is not getting ready for school, but a day at work instead. Cesar works with his family in a garbage dump.

Families here cannot feed their children, so they resort to picking through trash for scraps to recycle and salvageable items to resell or even food to eat. Children with no shoes, dirt on their faces, and lice in their hair are everywhere on an average day. Many of them having a rusty color in their hair from exposure to the methane gas in the dump.

The dump is very hot and incredibly infectious to small children like Cesar. Because of the toxic nature of the landfill, the children are often sick with skin infections, respiratory diseases and dysentery. The garbage pickers or “Guajeros” as they are referred to, struggle to make pennies a day, if that.

Help feed children like Cesar with a gift to Food For The Poor. Click here to help feed innocent children.

View a Guatemalan garbage dump video below.