Who we help

As our name suggests we help children who have been affected by various forms of conflict or crisis. Although 'conflict' includes war, it is not restricted be this alone. Extreme poverty, hunger, abandonment, persecution and lack of employment opportunities can all lead to situations where children become desperate and resort to activities which bring them into conflict with the police, with their families and teachers and with society in general.

Our current projects focus on supporting street children (i.e. those living and working in the streets) but also vulnerable and abused children who are 'at risk' of dropping out of school, running away from home and becoming street children.

We recognise that when working with street children it is not enough to work with the child in isolation or to rehabilitate him or her without looking at the root causes of the problem. Unless the underlying issues - endemic poverty, family breakdown, abuse, lack of employment opportunities - which cause children to drift to the streets are addressed, then nothing will change.

"Any programme assisting children should not end in the street but in the community where the children come from. Children on the street are a symptom and dealing only with symptoms is purely remedial" - Africa Insight

We therefore offer support to the families of street children - siblings, parents or caregivers. Our main goal is to keep children in their families or to return them there if they have left home for the streets. Improving circumstances at home is the key to ensuring that children remain with their families and off the streets in the long-term. Our work to this end is varied and ranges from providing parenting skills training to elderly relatives struggling to bring up difficult children, to helping single mothers to access financial support from absent fathers, and helping impoverished parents to set up their own income generating projects and to become financially independent.