2024 CEO review

Dear all,


Firstly - an enormous thank you to absolutely everyone who has supported Street Child in any way in 2024.  Street Child is a work of so many hands - and I am grateful to everyone involved, every day. If I can also add aspecific massive thank you to everyone who has responded already to our recent appeal for funds to respond to the horrific cyclone on 15 December that devastated many of the war-displaced communities we have been working with in Mozambique - our teams are on the ground now putting your donations into action.

2024 has been another super busy, exciting and impactful year, so here are just ten of my highlights. 
 

And just before we get into that - here is a diary date for anyone in/near London who would like to learn more - Thursday 9th January evening we will hold another of our ‘programme evenings’ with a panel/Q+A/reception with several of our senior programme leaders. The event will take place at the Goldman Sachs offices located at Plumtree Court, 25 Shoe Lane, London, EC4A 4AU. Please e-mail events@street-child.org for more details. 
 

1. Liberia - A Plan For 50,000 Children

It has been nine years since a sitting President has graced a Street Child event (that was President Koroma taking part in post-Ebola 2015 Sierra Leone Marathon) - so it was an immense privilege for Street Child to host President Joseph Boakai of Liberia, to deliver the opening remarks at Street Child’s United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) side-event in New York this September. President Boakai’s presence at our UNGA event put the seal on an exciting partnership between Street Child and his new Government, elected in late 2023 - with a headline goal of working together to support the education of 50,000 out-of-school and street-connected children during the first term of his Presidency.

2. Transforming Education in Somaliland

No part of Street Child’s work anywhere in 2024 has given me more satisfaction than our achievements in Somaliland which went to a new level this year. In tight collaboration with UNICEF and numerous local NGOs we delivered a transformative ‘teaching at the right level’ (TARL) education programme for nearly 6,000 young learners with superb results. Meanwhile the team also secured an exciting multi-year grant from Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN’s fund for education-in-emergencies, that will anchor our work in Somaliland for the next three-years.  

3. The Times & Sunday Times Christmas Appeal 2023

Our Christmas 2023 appeal with The Times and Sunday Times continued to the end of January 2024 - with several further compelling pieces published, such as this article on the extraordinary impact of Street Child’s work with teenage girls in Southern Nepal and a powerful op-ed from Andrew Mitchell, then Minister of State for Development and Africa. Our enormous thanks to everyone who contributed to the £1.5m that was raised, once British Government and all other matching was counted - a proud record for a Times festive appeal! There were so many fantastic articles written over the ten weeks of the appeal that so beautifully capture the essence and spirit of our work - you can see them all here. 

4. Education for Every Child Today (EFECT) in West Africa

Street Child’s largest ever initiative, a 4-year programme to see 96,000 out-of-school children into education in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria reached its half-way point - with us on target! At the most recent formal measuring point in June, 48,600 previously out-of-school children were now enrolled in education, as a direct result of the project’s support. Whilst 50% of the costs of this massive project are generously funded by the Education Above All Foundation’s  ‘Educate a Child’ programme, this still leaves Street Child and our supporters having to meet the not inconsiderable challenge of delivering the remaining 50%! We are immensely grateful for your support. You can read more about this life-changing project in the below Times articles:

• A hunger to learn in a remote Nigerian village 

• The world's forgotten war: a rare journey beyond Boko Haram lines 

5. Ukraine 

Ukraine is the country where Street Child actually spent the most money in 2024. Enormous kudos to our leader Sasha, his team and the 30+ group of local organisations, of all different shapes and sizes, we have partnered with - mainly in the East of the country, close to the contact line. As well as continuing to focus on school repairs, remote education, and psycho-social support to teachers and children, Street Child have launched eye-catching initiatives focused on children with disabilities, and on digital learning. Ukraine was also a focus of several of the incredibly-moving Times articles that bring to life our work there better than I ever can :

• How Street Child is using football to help Ukraine's young people 

• The creche where Ukrainian children learn to laugh again   

• Ball pits and candy floss create a safe space for Ukrainian children 

6. New Ground in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone saw two exciting brand-new, long-term initiatives launch - logical developments of years of preceding work. As the year closed we reached agreement with the Government to develop an initial 20 secondary schools in the first half of next year - to meet the increased demand coming from children who have successfully completed their primary education in the 100s of primary schools Street Child have developed across the country since 2010. Street Child also distributed its first family business grants in 2010, to help families grow their income so they can pay their children’s school fees - and is now taking the initiative to the next level by opening, ‘Loans for Learning’, a loan facility for families who managed a grant well, to help them expand their enterprises and keep pace with the increased cost of senior secondary, and perhaps even tertiary education. Just last week 3,000 families took an interest-bearing loan from Street Child of Sierra Leone - and 1,000s more will next year too. The Times appeal also wrote several incredibly compelling articles on our work over the years in Sierra Leone:

• I was a teenage sex worker until Street Child changed my life

• Slum children dream of becoming doctors and engineers 

• War took my daughter's left arm but it did not steal her education

7. Silent Conflicts

Some wars get massive attention; others hardly make a ripple in the global media - I am always especially proud of the impact Street Child makes for children in these distant conflicts that no-one has ever heard of, but where suffering is equally real. In recent years I have mentioned our work in Northern Mozambique and NW/SW Cameroon in this context - and we have had our busiest years in both those situations in 2024. But today I want to highlight Street Child’s action around a place called Kwamouth, which, given its rather English-sounding name, you might be surprised to learn is in Western DRC, not so far from Kinshasa. Certainly I had never heard of Kwamouth until Jean Claude, our regional leader, began highlighting ethnic conflict in the area that was now rapidly expanding but receiving hardly any global attention or humanitarian support. I am proud to write that, from a small pilot, we have now grown a significant presence in the region - supporting displaced children and their families; and as the only international charity working to support their education. 

8. Education Cannot Wait

Seeing great articles about Street Child’s work in the Times throughout January, and hosting President Boakai in New York were cool - though probably pipped to the post as ‘pinch-me’ moments by a 7am (no, not my favourite time) meeting at The Watergate Hotel (yes, that one) in DC in April. The meeting in question had twenty-something participants, arranged in horseshoe format and was chaired by Gordon Brown. Did I mention that the other participants were mainly Ministers, or senior civil servants, from various countries … Anyhow, together we are the ‘High Level Steering Committee’ (HLSG - Board equivalent) of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN’s fund for education-in-emergencies - which Street Child has the enormous privilege of sitting on, for at least the next 2 years - as the elected formal representative of the ‘international NGO’ community, taking over from World Vision and before that Save the Children and Plan International. Fifteen years ago a meeting of the ‘whole of Street Child’ was less than a dozen of us sat under a thatch roof in Makeni! 

9. New Frontiers - Pakistan, Burundi and Moldova

Street Child got underway in Pakistan - a country with one of the world’s highest numbers of out-of-school children. We are consulting on a major ECW programme we supported the design of and that is being delivered by VSO and a number of great local organisations who we also helped bring together.  ‘New frontier’ shout outs also to Street Child in Burundi, where Street Child has been active for a while but has had its busiest year - in particular working closely with UNICEF this autumn to limit the spread of Mpox in schools; and Moldova, where our work with the Government to develop a national programme of child care services is perhaps our best example of deep Government collaboration, anywhere - and an exciting example of what it is possible to achieve with a dedicated Government partner!

10. Raising Euros

Street Child exists for our programme impact in the field but of course so much of our work is the vital business of fundraising! As ever, 2024 saw a calendar of wonderful events - from the sweat of the Sierra Leone Marathon, Bike Ride with Liberty Global and the (new) Everest trek; to the more refined galas and carols … But if I were to showcase just one fundraising highlight above all - it is a shout out to the various, nascent chapters of Street Child Europe who, for the first time, saw their collective turnover go past €2m in 2024. And a special nod to Street Child Germany, who drove half that sum. We are enormously excited by the potential of Street Child’s European fundraising ...

Like I said - it has been another busy and exciting year. But we could not have done it without you, so let me end where I began - with enormous thanks to everyone who is part of Street Child in any way, shape, or form - together we make the difference! 

If you are reading this in the days before Christmas, I hope you have a wonderful time (and if you are reading after Christmas, well, I hope it was great). 

And for everyone … wishing you all the best for 2025! 

Best wishes,  

Tom