Verhalen & nieuws

Sinds het begin van de oorlog in Oekraïne zijn meer dan 4.793.832 Oekraïense burgers door Roemenië gereisd. De meeste Oekraïense vluchtelingen zijn vrouwen, terwijl 34% van de Oekraïense vluchtelingen kinderen zijn. Om aan de behoeften van deze kinderen te voldoen, heeft onze StreetSmart-partner Save the Children in juni 2022 een mobiele school geïntroduceerd in de Roemeense hoofdstad Boekarest om aan de behoeften te voldoen. In dit interview met de lokale coördinator Georgiana Dobre onderzoeken we de uitdagingen en successen van het bieden van onderwijs en het bevorderen van verbinding voor Oekraïense kinderen en gezinnen sinds het begin van het conflict.

Six months after the devastating earthquakes that hit south-east Türkiye and northern Syria, millions of children are still in need of psychosocial and educational support. To meet the huge needs in the field, StreetSmart recently joined forces with the Turkish association Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Development (ISSDA) to bring non-formal educational activities and play to a container city in one of the hardest-hit areas in the region.

Habbekrats testte StreetSmart Impact een jaar lang uit en koos er daarna resoluut voor om de tool te implementeren binnen de hele werking. Dries Boeye, Inhoudelijk Coördinator bij Habbekrats, vertelt ons meer over de organisatie en over hun ervaringen met onze tool.

The StreetSmart Wheels network in Latin America continues to grow! At the end of June, a promising potential partnership was explored in Brazil, the largest country in the region. Our friends at O Pequeno Nazareno are impatient to start using our StreetSmart tools, and we are thrilled to collaborate in providing more opportunities for the many street-connected children and adolescents in Fortaleza.

In August, StreetSmart will start up a new, special StreetSmart Wheels partnership in southern Türkiye, in collaboration with the social enterprise Mikado Consulting. The collaboration is a response to the massive needs for children and young people after the earthquake that hit the region in February. As a response, Ashoka fellows Serra Titiz of Mikado Consulting and Arnoud Raskin of MobileSchool.org and StreetSmart are joining forces to bring non-formal education, trauma- and stress-relief to one of the most-affected areas in the region.

In the second week of May, our team successfully launched mobile school number 66. Our newest magic box will be rolling around the streets of the Bhambayi community in Inanda, near the city of Durban, and is the first-ever mobile school in South Africa!

Since 2018, StreetSmart partnered with Child Rescue Kenya in Kitale to run an outreach project with the mobile school. However, due to the pandemic and internal organizational changes, both parties decided the mobile school could have more impact elsewhere. Thanks to the well-structured team of the International Fellowship Kenya (INTERFELK) and their colleagues of the Kisumu Street Children Rehabilitation Consortium (KSCRC), a new Wheels partnership was rapidly established to give this Kenyan mobile school a fresh start

Children’s rights are under pressure. The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the intensifying effects of climate change and the disastrous consequences of conflicts have caused a decline in respect for children’s rights in the last decade. To break the downward spiral, MobileSchool.org is taking action. On April 12, International Day for Street Children, the organisation launches the interactive toolkit All Children, All Right(s) and a new social media campaign to present itself as a change agent in the children’s rights debate.

Since 2012, organisations worldwide put the spotlight on the millions of street-connected children around the world and acknowledge their strength and resilience on April 12th, the International Day for Street Children.

In 2005, the first mobile school on the African continent was implemented in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. Since then, the East African nation always remained one of the countries with the most active StreetSmart Wheels partners. To reconnect with our Kenyan partner network, a two-week visit was organised at the end of February to conduct extra trainings with the local street work teams and to explore new potential partnerships.

After being in contact with the organisation SathSath for over 10 years, the time was finally there to launch their mobile school in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu. After a successful exploration in August, our StreetSmart trainers Adi and Anupriya conducted the implementation trainings for the local team at the end of February. Moreover, the launch of the mobile school comes at a very special time for the organisation as it coincides with the celebration of the 25th anniversary of SathSath! In the article below are five photos from the official launch which took place on March 1 near the famous Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu.

Mexico City is known worldwide for its countless tourist centers, from Aztec temples to historic murals, it is one of the largest urban areas in the world and the second largest in the Americas. There StreetSmart has a partner, Yolia Niñas de la Calle, which brings informal education to girls in street situations, but the need to give attention to street-connected children is bigger, and that’s why Fundación Pro Niños de la Calle also seeks an opportunity to bring StreetSmart Wheels to the streets. Let's meet this foundation!