Street Children

The Prevalence, Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children

How You Can Help

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To help reduce the prevalence, abuse and exploitation of Street Children, check out the following list of organizations that are working towards these goals and support their efforts either financially or through active participation. Always research an organization and solicit advice from friends or colleagues before sending money.

Ashoka has been selecting Fellows working in the field of human rights for the past 22 years and felt an increasing need to consolidate lessons learned by creating a body of knowledge capturing the range of their work, strategies, experiences, and lessons learned, and to discern the patterns of both social needs and Fellow solutions and further distill principles, which will then be disseminated to practitioners in the human rights sector.

Balkan Sunflowers (BSF) is an international volunteers network running a range of community building, social work and refugee relief projects in Kosovo and Macedonia. Many of their projects focus largely on working with children. Balkan Sunflower volunteers come from many national, ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds, living and working together with people struggling to rebuild their lives. Volunteers come for at least four weeks, and establish themselves in war-torn towns, refugee camps or vulnerable communities, organising children and youth activities and workshops for adults, teaching courses, or providing information. They aim to make life easier and more fun, and to contribute to a climate of trust and self-confidence within which people can begin to live their lives more fully again.

CARF – Children at Risk Foundation benefits the street children of Brazil by defending their rights and offering them a dignified solution so that they could live and grow within a family-oriented context and healthy social environment.

Casa Alianza is the Latin American branch of the N.Y.-based Covenant House, providing a range of diverse and integrated specialized services for street children. Casa Alianza’s program consists of five phases: Street Outreach, Pre-Community, Crisis Centers, Transition Homes, and. Group Homes

Catholic Action For Street Children, Accra, Ghana is a Ghanaian N.G.O., which helps street children, who live in the streets of Accra, Ashaiman, and Tema metropolis. CAS runs a House of Refuge in Lartebiokorshie, Accra. In this day-center, street boys and girls play games and rest. They can receive medical treatment, wash and keep their money and belongings safe. Very importantly, the Refuge is also a place where they can receive advice about their life and future.

CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL is a nonprofit humanitarian organization dedicated to bettering the lives of impoverished children, their families and communities. These goals are achieved primarily through child sponsorship, which unites children in need with individual sponsors who wish to address the children's immediate and basic needs. The sponsorship program currently benefits more than 300,000 impoverished children and their families in Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Mexico, the Philippines, the United States and Zambia.

CHILDREN'S RELIEF NETWORK - brings hope to the hurting, impoverished children and youth of Romania by providing them with physical, medical and educational resources so they may live a productive life and become agents of hope in their nation and around the world.

Childright Worldwide is an e-initiative of Nobel Laureates, dedicated to raise public awareness on issues concerning the plight and the future of the world's children, and to combat child abuse, child slavery and sexual exploitation of children.

CRIN - Child Rights Information Network is a global network that disseminates information about the Convention on the Rights of the Child and child rights amongst non-governmental organizations (NGOs), United Nations agencies, inter-governmental organization (IGOs), educational institutions, and other child rights experts. The Coordinating Unit is based in London, UK.

CSC - Consortium for Street Children consists of 37 UK based organizations dedicated to the welfare and rights of street living and working children and children at risk of taking to street life. Its member agencies support the work of projects in Latin America, Asia and Africa and increasingly in parts of Eastern Europe.

COVENANT HOUSE is the largest privately-funded childcare agency in the United States providing shelter and service to homeless and runaway youth. In addition to food, shelter, clothing and crisis care, Covenant House provides a variety of services to homeless youth including health care, education, vocational preparation, drug abuse treatment and prevention programs, legal services, recreation, mother/child programs, transitional living programs, street outreach and aftercare.

EFSCW - European Foundation for Street Children Worldwide is a Brussels-based foundation committed on a non-profit basis to the improvement of the rights and situations of children at risk and particularly street children. As a platform for lobbying and advocacy towards the European Union, it provides non-governmental organizations committed to this cause with information and advice concerning all children and youth-related policies and assistance programs of the EU and facilitates the exchange of best practice between them.

Father's Care - is a non-profit, non-sectarian humanitarian organization that since 1999 has been involved in giving hope and a future to some of the 50,000+ street children in Kiev. It emerged from the vision of two American women to see the restoration of the family in Ukraine through the rescue and rehabilitation of street children.

Friends - International is a non-political, non-religious organization that was established in 1994 to support to street children, their families and their community worldwide. The objective of Friends-International is to support street children enabling them to become independent and productive adults in their society. Friends-International develops projects for street children and supports organizations to initiate and develop their own.

HAITIAN STREET KIDS, INC provides a safe and secure home for
abandoned and abused restavek child slaves and street kids in Port au Prince, Haiti. It actively seeks out these children throughout Haiti and provide them with a caring, safe environment with opportunities for a top grade education and hope for a better future.

House of Mercy Children’s Home, Lagos, Nigeria provides family-based, long-term residential care for children under 18 years of age who have been permanently separated from their natural families due to a combination of death, abandonment or serious abuse.

Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice. We investigate and expose human rights violations and hold abusers accountable. We challenge governments and those who hold power to end abusive practices and respect international human rights law. We enlist the public and the international community to support the cause of human rights for all.

Love's Bridge meets with children in their own environment, on the street, and gains their trust. They run a day shelter where children can receive the care, attention, counsel and love that they need, in a situation that allows them to come and go freely. The objective is to develop trust so that they can be encouraged to give up their addictions and resume their studies.

National Runaway Switchboard provides a confidential hotline for runaway youth. Its mission is To keep America's runaway and at-risk youth safe and off the streets. Call 1-800-RUNAWAY

Pangea provides a collection of readings for those concerned about protecting and improving the lives of the world's street children-- our community children--and helping them to their full human potential.

Preda Foundation aims to promote and protect the dignity and the Human Rights of the Filipino people especially of women and children. The main focus is to assist sexually exploited and abused children and provide them with an environment of acceptance and understanding in society.

SAL - Shine a Light recognizes that real solutions to youth homelessness emerge not from ivory towers or bureaucratic offices, but from grass roots organizations in São Paulo, Bogotá, and Mexico City. SAL supports these programs and provides the tools with which they can share their cost effective, culturally appropriate models.

SKCV Children's Trust - South India works to create an environment for comprehensive development of young homeless and orphan street children, making them aware of themselves with relation to the world and their own problems, thus mobilizing their independent potential to work collectively towards a better future for themselves, and a cleaner, healthier and more peaceful planet through child participation.

Stand Up for Kids helps homeless and street kids in cities across America, carrying out its mission through volunteers who go to the streets in order to find, stabilize and otherwise help homeless and street kids improve their lives.

SOS Children provides a home (in Children's Villages) for around 50,000 children in over 125 countries and helps half a million more through projects around the world, including AIDS orphans, street children and tsunami orphans.

Street Kids International strives to be the lead organization in developing, disseminating and advocating the practical solutions needed to give street kids around the world the choices, skills, and opportunities to make a better life for themselves.

UNICEF is the world's leading organization working specifically for children. UNICEF works with local communities and governments in 157 countries, areas and territories, to provide emergency relief and run long-term development programs in areas such as health, education and child protection.