Advocacy and policy change at SCU: what action are we taking?
At Street Child United (SCU), we believe that every street-connected child deserves to be seen, heard, and supported. Systemic and government policy are often some of the biggest barriers to achieving equality for these children. Indeed, making progress in these areas will be a key part of championing the legal, educational, and protective rights of these children. It’s only natural, therefore, that advocacy work and supporting policy change are at the heart of what we do here at SCU.
Driving policy change for lasting impact
Our advocacy work focuses on delivering improvement in a few core areas: promoting efforts for securing legal identity, access to education, protection from violence and gender equality.
Our flagship events, the Street Child Football and Cricket World Cups, are instrumental to this. Much more than sports tournaments, these events are powerful drivers for change.
Importantly, they give children the opportunity to not only challenge perceptions of what street-connected people can achieve, but also to advocate for themselves. During these events, we facilitate Congress sessions where the children can raise awareness of key issues and promote their rights directly to policymakers and international organisations.
And these efforts have had a hard-hitting impact. For instance, during the ‘Durban Declaration’ in 2010, children identified critical issues and appealed to the UN Human Rights Council, leading to important changes like ending harmful police roundups of street-connected children in South Africa.
Similarly, at the 2023 Cricket World Cup in Chennai, children crafted policy recommendations that addressed their unique challenges. These proposals focused on access to healthcare, education and protection against violence, and were shared with influential stakeholders like the Shree Dayaa Foundation and British High Commission representatives.
This work also extends far beyond the remit of the events, with programmes running continually to make progress on our key systemic issues. These focus on everything from vocational training and healthcare access to empowering young leaders who champion rights in their local environments.
Given the global scope of our mission, collaboration is naturally central to these efforts, and we work with NGOs, grassroots organisations, and global bodies to maximise the impact for street-connected children. Our partnerships with UNICEF, Save the Children, and local organisations, among many others, have helped drive impactful community-based initiatives.
Our ‘One Million and One’ campaign
One of our most ambitious advocacy initiatives is the ‘One Million and One’ Campaign, launched at the 2022 Qatar Street Child World Cup.
The campaign addresses a huge barrier faced by street-connected children worldwide: legal identification. Without a legal ID, millions of children are denied access to their rights to education, healthcare, and protection from exploitation.
Through this campaign, our goal is to secure legal identity and documentation for over one million children, primarily through partnerships at both grassroots and global levels by our next Street Child World Cup event in 2026.
On the ground, we’re collaborating with local organisations to identify and support children in obtaining documentation, ensuring their needs are met in culturally and regionally specific ways. Meanwhile, on an international level, we’re engaging with policymakers, governments, and global organisations to push for systemic change and legislation that guarantees every child’s right to legal identity.
How can you help promote change?
Ultimately, advocacy goes hand in hand with what SCU stands for: turning awareness into action to provide tangible, lasting benefits for street-connected children. But it’s a collective effort – so find out how you can get involved in supporting our mission today.
