With several billion tourist dollars and euros flooding into the Dominican Republic every year, it is unsurprising perhaps that the standard of living for most Dominicans has improved markedly in recent years. The country's GDP per capita stands at over US$8200, and has been increasing steadily at just under 4% per year since the early nineties. Yet despite these encouraging figures, according to a report by US-based charity USAID, over 16% of Dominicans continue to live in 'extreme poverty' while the poorest half of the population accounts for less than a fifth of the total GNP.

It can be said that this is a nation of contrasts, and nowhere are these contrasts more apparent than on the streets of the capital itself. For the thousands of homeless men, women and children living in Santo Domingo, every day is a struggle for survival. Stories like that of Joel are to be found all over the city. He is thirteen years old and has been homeless since the age of eleven.

Originally from Santiago he left home and came to the capital looking for work and opportunities but instead found only poverty and disillusionment. After the death of his aunt, with whom he had been living, Joel found himself alone and eventually homeless. He now works from dawn until nightfall washing car windshields on Avenida Abraham Lincoln. On a good day this will earn him around 150 pesos. When business is slow he gets by scavenging for leftovers and relying on the charity of passers by. At these times he has frequently been pushed to drinking from drains and ditches in order to survive.

Life on the streets is tough and Joel is extremely vulnerable, constantly exposed to disease, hunger and violence. Ironically it is the police - the very people whose job it is to protect people like Joel - who have, in the past, been responsible for some of the worst atrocities. Crimes in the area are often wrongly attributed to Joel and his friends and the police, allegedly, use violence as a deterrent. The only security he has is found in the solidarity of his group of fellow ‘palomos’ or street children.

Despite the apparent hopelessness of their situation, Joel and his friends, refuse to give up their dreams of change. He tells me that when he grows up he wants to study, to have a steady job, a car and a wife. But for now, this life of hardship and uncertainty remains a grim reality for Joel and the thousands like him clinging onto a precarious existence on the streets of Santo Domingo.