• CYP:
• What's New:
• Street Kids International approaches CYP for collaboration

Street Kids International approaches CYP for collaboration

7 June 2007

A meeting was called to explore the possibility of a partnership between Street Kids International and the Commonwealth Youth Programme on 18 April at Marlborough House, home of the CYP London office

David Pell, Executive Director of Street Kids International (Street Kids) came to the CYP office for a specific request – to look for partnership, which he described as essential to the work of Street Kids.

Street Kids International began 19 years ago and has its headquarters in Canada and an office in the UK to raise funds for specific projects.

It is based in many regions around the world including the Andes, South Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern and Southern Africa however does not have branch offices there because its focus is on the capacity building of its partners.

Street Kids works directly with youth workers, community workers and organisations that work with street kids.

Street Kids work falls into three programme areas, Street Health, Street Work, and Street Rights.

Street Work falls into two parts, Street Business Toolkit and Banking Toolkit. Street Business Toolkit is used to train youth workers to train young people to engage in business. It’s like an MBA programme but for street kids and very practical. It teaches street kids how to identify a business idea and then apply it through role plays and games. Animation and literature is used to start the discussion which is translated into the language of whatever country the programme is being run in. Once the kids go though the programme, youth workers will introduce street banking if they feel the youth are ready. Street Banking teaches the kids about savings and loans.

Street Health raises awareness and knowledge about personal skills to avoid harmful disasters such as HIV, substance use, prostitution etc.

The third programme area is Youth Rights. SKI is not an advocacy organisation but it has to engage in advocacy because of the nature of its work.

A general definition of street youth is someone between the ages of 13 and 30, “who spend their days living on the streets and all what that involves”. They are also referred as “the forgotten group”.

Asked about his reasons for approaching CYP, David said he was on a mission to find good partners in Commonwealth countries and was looking to CYP to point him in the right direction.

Cristal de Saldanha Stainbank, the CYP Advisor for Youth Development and chair of the meeting, commended the work of Street Kids. Further discussions ensued about how the two organisations might work together.

Also present at the meeting were CYP team members, Rajkumar Bidla, Project Manager, and Diane Mensah-Bonsu, Website Coordinator.

For more information about Street Kids International please contact David Pell at dpell@streetkids.org