Discover > Magazine > September 2009 > Mission for kids > Operation Uruguay
Operation Uruguay
UNICEF Uruguay’s top priorities
• Early childhood development
• Education
• Violence
• Juvenile Justice
Facts about Uruguay
• Nearly half of the children of Uruguay are born and grow up below the poverty line.
• More than 20 percent of children under 2 are at risk, or have serious problems in intellectual development.
• 33 percent of 15 year-old Uruguayan students do not reach the minimum competence threshold in reading and math (PISA 2006).
• Adolescents are wrongly associated with the increasing insecurity and violence—67.5 percent of 14,420 police interventions on adolescents were groundless in 2007.
• Most services, resources, institutions and projects dedicated to adolescents are concentrated in Montevideo and metropolitan areas. I National Congress of Children and Adolescents of Uruguay and the National Consultation to Children and Adolescents “Opino y Vale” pointed at the need for public places, sport, cultural and recreation activities, and places to meet.
