The pressure they feel to send all available cash is great and though the amount they earn can be high by national levels, it does not go far in Dili, where expenses quickly add up.
Justinho Babo Soares, from the Oratori Dom Bosco Catholic foundation, the only organization focused on helping street children here, said the government should pay more attention to their plight and help them get back to school.
The children from Oecussi, however, pose a special challenge, he said.
"With children from Oecussi... we have tried to put them in school or give them training but it doesn't work because they are already too used to having money and so they go back to selling on the street," Soares said.
"This is because of the condition of their families, which are so poor that [the teenagers] feel they have to help support them," he said.
East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta said parents should play a role in bringing their children in from the streets, but he was working on the issue.
"Tomorrow and in the future, I will continue to look out for them and tell these children that the president will do his best so that they will no longer be on the streets," he said.
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