2021 CEO review

Dear All,

I hope you are well and have had as good a 2021 as possible, despite what have remained challenging, and in some cases awful, circumstances for all.

I’m writing, as has become an end-of-year tradition, to thank you immensely for your support, without which nothing is possible and to share with you a little of what we have been able to achieve as a result. 

There have been immense headwinds! Of course COVID-19 - whoever thought we would be at approximately 100k daily cases in UK this Christmas or that most children in Uganda would still not have been inside a classroom since March 2020? The British Government's shameful, self-defeating aid-cuts hit our work in South Sudan, Nepal, Afghanistan and especially the Democratic Republic of Congo - on top of a list of advanced pipeline proposals that were snuffed out. And of course, the Taliban re-capturing of power in Afghanistan, where Street Child have been steadily growing our presence since 2018 was shocking, depressing and for many, terrifying.

That all said, Street Child's strengths include an immense resilience and an ability to get things done, for children who really need us, whatever the weather! Nowhere is this truer than our teams' immense work in Afghanistan this Autumn, about which more later. But first I want to share some of our other highlights:

In Sierra Leone, our teams worked to transform the educational prospects of 55,000 children - through projects funded by 50% of the proceeds of the brilliant 17/18, 18/19 & 19/20 UK Aid-Matched appeals. I was delighted to be in Sierra Leone for six busy days last month, for the first time in two years. One evening we were sat round a table on another meeting that had gone into the night and I could see, next to me, Daniel, who has lead our family business scheme in Sierra Leone since 2011 scribbling various numbers down furiously. I asked him what he was up to. He replied, “I am adding up how many business grants my team made since you were last in-country … and I think the answer is 10,062!”. There is simply a huge amount of 'smart-simple', excellent work going on every day. 

In Nepal, COVID-19 has dominated the year. The horrific wave of COVID-19 that swept through Delhi, with much media attention, very shortly afterward hit Nepal with little of the global coverage but equal ferocity. Schools have only just re-opened. Our team has continued to support 6,500 girls of the Musahar caste, through the pandemic, but also to keep their education on-track.

Evidence that female Musahar literacy rates were as low as 4% were what brought us to this community in 2018 and our teams have been determined not to let the pandemic blow our focus on that critical issue off-course. Innovative remote learning packages consisting of recorded instruction delivered on MP3 players, printed materials and short mobile phone sessions with teachers are a long way from how we ever envisaged working but have seen impressive learning gains.

DFID/FCDO are our main funders for this project and it is with some pride that we can report that, uniquely, for the second year in a row they have graded our work ‘A+’. Moreover, this year we were also informed that our project was rated 5/5 in terms of ‘value for money’ - the only project in FCDO’s flagship global GEC portfolio ‘Girls Education Challenge’ portfolio to achieve this rating. Alongside the results of Street Child’s participation in the ‘Partnership Schools for Liberia’ programme in 2019, this is the second time in three years Street Child has achieved third-party recognition as an outstanding performer in a high-profile setting, where different charities and operators’ performance in highly comparable projects are compared with each other. 

In Cameroon, in one of the world’s most unknown and thus unfunded but horrible conflicts, Street Child have started to create a remarkable impact in tight partnership with multiple outstanding local NGOs, but one in particular, LUKMEF. Together we reached over 20,000 children in different ways; protection, nutrition, education and very basic health services. We believe we have a platform to do even more in 2022, especially in education which sits right at the heart of the 'Anglophone' conflict in Western Cameroon. A conflict which has kept up to a million children out of school for five years. There are very few large charities operating in Anglophone Cameroon, even fewer focussing on education. Our presence is of enormous and distinctive value.

In South Sudan, our teams are partnering with the Government and UNICEF to design and deliver a unique nationwide radio education programme. 'Education on air' aims to reach children of primary-school ability who are out of school, needing to catch-up after COVID-19 or for other reasons such as conflict or climate-disaster, with broadcasts on radio stations across the entire country. Our teams are presently finishing up the scripts and we hope to be 'on air' in February!

These are just a few highlights. There are so many others, not least from our ongoing massive programming in Northeast Nigeria where our work has reached 50,000 children this year in the Boko Haram conflict-zone, Uganda and everywhere else. But of course, our very largest focus since August has been on Afghanistan.

I won't repeat all we already know about the situation but to quickly recap the basics from a Street Child perspective - we entered 2021 with the funding in place, and an ambitious plan to scale our education work to reach 40,000 children; and I'm delighted to write that we have remained on course with that plan every day of this year. Moreover, we are set to scale-up to reach 70,000 children within weeks - and hope to be able to reach 100,000 with education and/or protection support within months.

There are many obstacles, not least the banking system and attendant complexities of getting money into the country ... but we have found ways! Three key factors are underpinning our ability to achieve this. The commitment and bravery of our staff is the first and most foundational factor. The second is our longstanding pragmatic engagement with the Taliban, who have long been a de facto authority in several of our operational areas - this has given us a platform to build on. And the third is the wonderful generosity of our supporters, especially this Autumn. 

We are in a very good position to continue receiving significant grants from the UN system but very frequently what they offer is 80% or 90% of the funding we request for a programme - provided we can muster the balance ourselves. This is where our Afghanistan appeal funds are kicking in.  In previous winters we have been fortunate to run 'Aid Match' campaigns which have doubled donations - in reality this year donations to our Afghanistan appeal are effectively helping us leverage not two times but four or five times their value. 

We are immensely grateful for all ongoing support - and as we know on our news channels, and through the DEC's current campaign, the humanitarian needs are only going to grow this Winter - and needless to say, as well as putting pens in children's hands we will also, where necessary, be adding blankets and heaters, and where necessary and possible - food.

Thank you again for your great support for Street Child, it is so massively appreciated and foundational, changing thousands of lives.

Depending on when you are reading this ... I hope you have, or had, a wonderful Christmas!

And of course, all our best wishes for 2022! 

Tom