"I had a dream when I was four years old. In it I saw myself very old, with a wrinkled face, happy, surrounded by little children in a very green place, with schools, sports fields and even hospitals in the middle of beautiful nature. A dream so special that I spent a large part of my childhood imagining what this paradise of children would be like.....

Almost at the same time, when I was around six years of age, another experience left a big mark on me. I got to know a little angel called Mumuca, a 'street kid' that my mother found one day, bleeding from the head and brought home so that my father, who is a doctor, could examine him.

I remember well from this first contact how he was such a happy child, without prejudices. We were only children who, by a chance of fate, belonged to 'different worlds' but we only thought of one thing – playing . After hours of entertaining ourselves with toys in my room, it came to bedtime. I went to my bed and my friend to his own home - but what home? He lived on the street with his parents…

I began to meet my new friend frequently and, under the wary eyes of other people, we played in the park and I brought him to meals at my house...We were pure children and we hadn't formed any judgements.

Then Mumuca disappeared for a long time. What had happened? They told me that he had been taken from the streets to some place, a shelter - I didn't know where it was. When later I met him again near to my house, I discovered that he had escaped from the shelter because of mal-treatment and returned to the streets, traumatised.

Our friendship was still the same, but he no longer had the same innocence in his eyes; he disappeared frequently and went about with doped up kids, sniffing coke. As we continued to be friends, Mumuquinha protected me. One time, he even prevented some children from attacking me, seeing them off and away from me quickly.

When he disappeared from the streets a second time, I asked his younger brother: 'Where is Mumuca?' The response came dryly and with a tone of normality - 'he died'. He carried on walking and I stayed where I was, in shock. I could not believe that a boy like myself, my friend, the same age as me, had left life at ten years old.

Since then, this experience of friendship and loss and this dream that I had from four years old, has driven me to search out forces for good, to fight and dedicate myself so that the cruel reality of children like my dear friend Mumuquinha can be transformed into the beautiful place of my dream. Finally, my heart always tells me that children like Mumuca only need love, compassion and opportunities in this life"

Ricardo Calçado

After spending his childhood in Rio de Janeiro, Ricardo moved to England with his mother, and in 2004 founded the NGO ChildrensAid (Onda Solidaria in Brazil) to support social projects with children and adolescents.