Work for Street Child World Cup

ABC Trust is a joint venture partner in the running of the Street Child World Cup to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2014. We are now recruiting for a new Communications Manager and a Corporate Fundraising Account Manager to join the team.

For more information, please click here.

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Rio street children make declaration against forced removals

When the first international Street Child World Cup took place in 2010, there were deep concerns about the round-up operations of street children that were happening in the World Cup host cities in South Africa. As the 2014 World Cup in Brazil grows ever closer, we are beginning to hear reactions from different groups to a recent resolution by the Rio city authorities to perform 'obligatory collections' of street children and adolescents ahead of the military Olympic games being held in the city this year.

The passing of this resolution and the subsequent use of force by police enacting the resolution caused an uproar not only amongst NGOs working with street children but also amongst some senior judges who spoke out in support of these NGOs and called for the city authorities to account for their actions.

Perhaps the most important reaction has come from a group of 50 street children, who were brought together by a forum of Brazilian NGOs on 15th June this year in response to this resolution, which in fact violates the Federal Constitution and the Statute of the Child and Adolescent.

In the declaration from the Forum on Street Children and Adolescents on 15th June, the children denounce these forced removal operations by the police, together with the aggressive and violent treatment that they receive from the authorities. The children also denounced a number of the clinics and shelters, that they are taken to by the police, because of their maltreatment of the young people and lack of support that they provide. These children also called for respect, affection, and care and for their rights to be upheld.

On 25th July, the Brazilian Lawyers Association (OAB) showed their support for the children's declaration by also releasing a declaration calling for the Government to implement policies to protect street children.

Over the coming years the ABC Trust will be working to ensure that the voices of Brazil's street children are heard and that the country's laws to protect the rights of children are properly respected and implemented.

To read the Declaration against Forced Removal Operations by Rio's Street Children in full, please click here.

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In 2014, ABC will host the second Street Child World Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Building on the success of last year’s first event in South Africa, we will bring teams of street children from 20 countries to compete and make their voices heard.

Over the next three years, ABC will form a wide range of partnerships with NGOs, corporations and government representatives across Brazil and the world. Yazigi, a network of 420 language schools around Brazil with 180,000 thousand students, is our first partner in Brazil.

More than just a language school, Yazigi seeks to contribute to the education process and global citizenship of their students. Through their campaign, Sports for Life, Yazigi demonstrates this commitment. Sports for Life’s main objective is to develop students' citizenship through sports in the communities where Yazigi is present and the social inclusion of street children and young people, making use of sports, arts and social activities. The campaign intends to raise funds to help ABC's projects in Brazil, promote the Street Child World Cup and raise awareness on the Statute of the Child and Adolescent, which was completed 20 years ago but still has a long way to go to become reality.

On March 24, the campaign Sports for Life was launched in an event at the Football Museum, in São Paulo, Brazil. More than 170 people, including school directors, teachers, students, famous athletes and partners from all over Brazil went to the event to learn more about the campaign and give their support.

During the launch, guests listened to presentations about the campaign and Yazigi’s commitment to creating “citizens of the world”. ABC Trust’s founder and trustee Jimena Page, the CEO Andrew Webb and Projects Coordinator Maira Inae attended the event and made a presentation about ABC and the Street Child Word Cup 2014 before guests went on to visit the city's Football Museum.

This is only the first of the many partnerships that ABC Trust will be making in the lead up to the 2014 event to ensure that the Street Child World Cup 2014 will reach out to many different segments of society.

If you are interested in getting involved in the SCWC or would like more information, please contact info@abctrust.org.uk or 0207 494 9344.

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The Durban Declaration

The Durban Declaration is the result of the discussions at the Street Child World Cup conferences in Durban. The document draws together the voices of all the children who attended the event and was presented to the UN on 9th March 2011.

Download the full Durban Declaration document here.

Listen to us: we have the right to be heard
“The government don’t do anything for children on the street, they don’t even think about them. When they see those children they do not even make a case for them. They should take them by the hand and say: I am going to support you, I am going to help you, you are not alone. But no – they look at them as they would anything else, like any other rubbish.”

Governments and civil society need to listen to street children to understand

•why they are on the streets and what their right to a home means to them
•how to end the abuse they experience and realise their right to protection from violence
•how to develop services and realise their right to education and health care.
These children believe their voices need to be heard so that negative perceptions of them change. They want it to be understood that “we are people like them”.

Listen to us: home means family
“A house doesn’t give me advice, food, love or care – the family offers you this.”

Governments and civil society need to understand – “we do not want to stay on the streets. It is not a good thing for children to live on the street”. These children spoke of leaving homes due to:

• neglect, sexual abuse and violence at home (often connected with alcohol and substance misuse);
• family breakdown and conflict, often involving “step-parents”;
• economic pressures, leading some children to seek to earn money on the streets.
  

Most of these children wanted to return home, and felt that if families could be given more support children would not have to run away.

Listen to us when we say we are abused: we have the right to be protected.
“When a child is beaten, nothing happens to the perpetrator.”

The children described incidents of violence and sexual abuse at home, on the streets (from gangs or members of the public), within institutions (including schools and orphanages), and from police and security guards. The children did not see the perpetrators of this abuse brought to justice.

Governments and civil society need to ensure that children can have confidence that they can report violence and abuse, and that steps will be taken to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable.

Listen to us so that we can have a future.
“Police and legal systems do not work. [These street child] projects work well.“

The children spoke of how projects in which they were involved had enabled them to leave the streets, access education and healthcare, and stop substance misuse. These projects took the time to understand why they were on the streets and the barriers and prejudice which prevented them from accessing services. They heard that the children wanted to return home and understood the difficulties involved in this process. These projects also understood the importance of sports and arts programmes to the children. “When I’m playing football, I don’t think of those bad things that happened to me”

Governments and civil society need to work together to understand why children do not access services, to ensure that investment is targeted toward those services that work, and to safeguard children’s rights.

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