Consequences of Stress on Child Development

My foster son is a prime example of what stressors like violence do to people.  He experienced a lot of violence when he was young from his mother, father, teachers, foster parents, and older children.  He was beat with brooms and baseball bats by his mother, had a foster parent push him down the stairs, and had a teacher slam him to the ground and hold him there while calling him racial slurs.  He had a gun pulled in his face by a stranger and has been beat up while sleeping on numerous occasions.  All of these things happened before he turned 14.  Because of all this violence, he has a terrible temper and as a young child was sent to counseling by his mother.  It didn't help his anger issues.  He was put on medication and went through anger management twice, neither helped.  His only way of coping with all the violence around him was to absorb it and try to find an outlet.  Unfortuantely, that outlet was by picking fights with peers and starting arguements with teachers and parents.  Now that he's older, he has found some more acceptable outlets such as exercise and martial arts but still has to work to control his temper when dealing with difficult situations.

In Brazil, children face many issues. There are many Street Children (either children who work the street, children who are runaways, abused, alienated children from deprived and poverty stricken families who are unable to maintain normal family units, or children who are orphans and abandoned children who parents may have died from war, illness or simply been unable to look after the children because of their family circumstance) and most of these are expected to be killed before they are 18. On a daily basis they face hunger, military police beatings, drug addition (often glue), becoming involved in stealing, prostitution, drug running, and gunfights.
The government is trying to eradicate poverty through taxation and public works projects and has promised to reduce ecomonically inequality before Rio de Janerio hosts the 2016 Olympics. The rich in Brazil hold charity events like the Zero Hunger drive aimed at providing food. The public sector too has started addressing poverty by creating jobs in some of the poorest neighborhoods.