Once the place where most of Northeast Brazil's political elite was educated, the Faculdade de Direito, or Law Faculty, is situated in Recife's bustling center. The faculty is neoclassical French in design, and its cream-colored walls are surrounded by benches, tightly cropped grass, and a variety of lush trees. Around its perimeter runs a wrought-iron fence, separating the repose of the faculty from the chaos of the surrounding streets of this port city.

It's a Tuesday afternoon in 1992. Four government social workers sit nervously in the lazy shade of a broad-leafed tree. On the other side of the faculty are two “street educators” from Ruase e Praças (Streets and Squares), a street-front, activist organization. They are accompanied by a Dutch volunteer and an American anthropologist, myself. Two members of a student group concerned about street children join us, followed by a young man from the Pentecostal Christian organization Desafio Jovem (Young Challenge). Next to the eastern gate of the Law School, some 20 women officers from the Military Police survey the grounds. Behind them, across the street, stands a smaller reinforcement of male officers who, for the moment, occupy themselves boyishly surveying their female counterparts.

In all, civil and religious activists, government social workers, police, and foreign onlookers number at least 40. This unlikely assembly has come together because the Law Faculty serves as the daytime hangout for a group of street children and young, homeless adults.