In October 1988, Hepburn visited South America. The priorities for this trip were street children and education. Audrey studied projects designed to aid children living on the street.

"Do you know how many street children there are in South America?" she later asked in New York. "All over the world?… But especially in South America and India? It's something like a hundred million who live and die in the streets." She toured Venezuela and Ecuador, where she witnessed UNICEF install water systems into tiny mountain communities who've never had water systems before.

"I watched boys build their own schoolhouse with bricks and cement provided by UNICEF," Hepburn said.