How COVID19 Affects Street Children
While the world stays at home, what happens to children who live or work on the streets?
Street-connected children
- Can’t “stay home and stay safe” if they have no home and shelters are closed
- Can’t access food and water if they can’t work on the street
- Can’t seek care when they fall ill
- Risk being locked up for being out during a lockdown
And after the stay-at-home orders are lifted, and countries globally are climbing out of the recession that has been created, the economic chaos will only make life more difficult for them.
What we are doing
To start to tackle the problem of keeping street children safe in this global emergency, we are working with our network members, human rights activists and governments to highlight the urgent issues and challenges and are seeking likeminded organisations, with the influence and resources to urgently respond.
The pressing human and child rights issues
In response to requests from human rights specialists and intergovernmental decision makers, we are providing insight that highlights what we are hearing from our network on working with children in street situations during the COVID-19 crisis.
Quick guides for advocacy with your government
Use our quick guides for government to help street-connected children during this COVID-19 pandemic:
- What are the rights of street children to be in public spaces, under orders to self-isolate or quarantine at home?
- How can street children stay informed with limited access to the internet or newspapers, and how can governments make Covid-19 information widely accessible?
- What should governments be doing to ensure street children can access health services during the pandemic?
- How can governments ensure that street children can meet their basic needs for food?
Corporate partnerships and donors
We are bringing together advocates, researchers, and influencers to be a leading voice for change, and we are supporting organisations all around the world who work directly with street children who urgently need shelter, food, clean water and access to health services. It’s a huge task and your support is more crucial than ever.
Network members’ stories
Let us know how street-connected children and homeless youth are affected in your area, and we’ll share the message wide and far.
To facilitate the sharing of information between organisations who are facing increasing restrictions on movement and decreasing supplies we have set up a simple form so that we can gather useful information to share across our network of over 140 organisations globally.
We are organising country-level and regional calls with CSC Network Members to enable them to discuss concerns, exchange good practices and support each other. To get involved contact network@streetchildren.org.
Become a member and receive regular updates
Here’s a few stories:
StreetInvest, International Development NGO, founded in the UK in 2008, has put all their programmes on hold to redirect resources towards COVID-19. In particular they have been working to get permission for street workers to be able to continue their critical on the ground support, directly distributing emergency response supplies and finding creative ways to get health services to street children. Just one fantastic example of this is their street work teams in Mombasa and Kumasi who have been paying the expenses for a health worker to come out with them.
Maya Vakfi, based in Turkey, is focused on safeguarding children and young adults. With over 500,00 Syrian refugees living in Istanbul, the situation prior to the pandemic was already challenging. Forced to close their youth and children’s centre in Istanbul, they have been running online information sessions for caregivers and parents about rights, entitlements and child protection-related issues, providing psychological counselling to children and their parents by phone, and distributing hygiene kits and food packages to those who need them most.
Useful resources
Please download this Word document for a comprehensive list of useful resources relating to COVID-19.