Stories & news

High-quality youth work demands high-quality materials! That’s why we decided in 2019 to launch StreetSmart Play, an online content platform where youth workers can consult and share their best educational games with their colleagues worldwide.

We’ve been waiting for it for so long, but now the time has finally come! Thanks to the rapid rollout of COVID vaccines, there is hope for a sunny summer full of social activities. High temperatures, more social contact and the prospect of bigger events give everyone a much-needed mental boost. Our MobileSchool.org team is also enjoying that boost and is carefully coming together again after months of working from home. The perfect moment for us as a team to set new goals and to look forward to the coming months.

More than a year into the pandemic, the street workers of our local partners are still doing their utmost to stay in close contact with their target groups. After a successful virtual exchange last year, the StreetSmart team organised a second global online exchange to allow partners to exchange tips and tricks on how to conduct street interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2020 got off to a promising start. StreetSmart planned to start up 5 new ‘Wheels projects’ (mobile schools) in Georgia, Poland, Turkey, Uganda and Sri Lanka. Logistics and training were planned, our partners stood ready to hit the streets and reach out to the street connected children and youth. The first new project began early 2020 in Sri Lanka.

Yes, let’s! Because talking about sexuality with children and young people is crucial. Young people who receive a qualitative sexual education make more conscious decisions, are less at risk of STDs and sexually transgressive behaviour and are happier in their relationships. So, there’s more than enough reasons to talk about sex!

Last year, 1.5 billion young people worldwide stayed at home to stop the spread of COVID-19. Estimations state that 9.7 million of these children will never be able to go back to school after the pandemic. Many of these kids will end up spending a lot of their time on the streets to contribute to the family income and to find ways to survive… The COVID-19 pandemic has once again painfully highlighted how street-connected children are too often excluded. That’s why it’s more important than ever to put the International Day for Street Children in the spotlight, in order to ensure street-connected children get more included both during and after the pandemic.

After more than 15 years of supporting local street work partners with mobile school carts and educational materials, StreetSmart now launches a couple of brand-new digital products. However, the mission statement of our organisation remains unchanged: empowering youth workers worldwide to conduct their daily work in a creative and efficient way. Since December last year, our application StreetSmart Impact is available to give youth workers more detailed insight in the results and impact of their work.

In order to meet the rapidly growing demand for qualitative educational materials, our StreetSmart team has created different activities to discuss the current COVID-19 pandemic. The educational package combines brand new with already existing activities and aims to give youth workers the tools to discuss the consequences of the pandemic with their target group.

We are launching an educational board game that allows Belgian families to reflect and vent with their children about the impact of the corona crisis. The board game called 'Coronials' aims to encourage families in a playful and approachable way to discuss the difficult situations we are experiencing today.

In the ‘Project in the Spotlight’ article series, we take the time to highlight the work of our partner organisations, since they are the local experts taking the mobile school to the streets. This time, we’re heading to Sucre, Bolivia. There, our local partner IPTK has been conducting outreach sessions in 6 different districts for more than 15 years. Below, you can find 7 things you have always wanted to know about our long-term Bolivian street work partner.

1.5 billion children could not attend school due to the COVID-19 lockdowns. 9.7 million of these children are also unlikely to ever return to school. Many of them are the street children our Mobile School partners work with every day.

It’s official: as of this month, we have 5 Polish StreetSmart Wheels partners, bringing the total to 58! The fifth Polish mobile school project was just implemented in Racibórz with brand new partner Pomocna Dłoń.