2025 is underway, and January was a busy month at Street Child. We’ve made significant progress with our emergency response in Mozambique, continuing to support children affected by disaster and displacement. Our Annual Report is now available, highlighting our impact in 2023/24. We also hosted a successful event in London with programme leaders and participated in key side events at the World Economic Forum in Davos, ensuring the educational needs of the most marginalised children were heard. 
Read on to find out more.

With the school year just beginning, Street Child is ramping up efforts to build both temporary and permanent schools in northern Mozambique, after Cyclone Chido destroyed every school in Mecufi.

Right now, 24 schools with 124 classrooms are urgently needed in Mecufi, alongside 41 schools with 155 classrooms in nearby Pemba. In addition to providing emergency shelter and security for children and their families, we are prioritising getting children back into school as quickly as possible.

So far, our emergency response has supported:
- 3,355 children from 849 families with family survival kits
- 3,506 children with mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services
- 301 children and 185 adults with specialised counselling
- 629 adolescent girls and young women with dignity kits

Introducing a support hotline for girls:

The cyclone has deepened existing gender inequalities, leaving girls more isolated and less able to access help. In disaster recovery, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, and our response prioritises the specific needs of women and girls, who are at greater risk of exploitation and abuse.

To address this, we have launched a dedicated hotline, allowing girls to report abuse or exploitation and receive confidential support from specialised female counsellors, along with gender-sensitive guidance.

Read more about the hotline and our gender-focused response on Devex.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, Street Child participated in two side events, highlighting the urgent need for private sector engagement in global education.

In partnership with our long-standing partner Liberty Global, we hosted a breakfast discussion focusing on the expanding responsibility of businesses in addressing the global education crisis, with a special emphasis on the transformative potential of technology. 

Additionally, Street Child participated in a panel discussion hosted by Infosys on education in emergencies, with a focus on our work in Ukraine, where we have established seven Digital Learning Centres with Infosys to ensure that education continues despite the ongoing conflict.

Both events emphasised the critical role of cross-sector collaboration in advancing education and improving outcomes for children around the world. 

We recently published our 2023/24 Annual Report, highlighting a year of extraordinary growth for Street Child. Once again, we achieved record financial results, with UK charity income reaching £21.5 million and programmatic investment climbing to £18.9 million—our highest levels ever. This incredible growth enabled us to expand our impact, supporting over 577,000 children to be safe, in school, and learning last year.

Marking our 15th anniversary, we celebrated several milestones, including being selected as the international charity for The Times and Sunday Times 2023 Christmas Appeal. This campaign raised over £1.4 million—a record-breaking achievement for The Times festive appeal.

Another key highlight was Street Child’s election to the High-Level Steering Group of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN’s fund for education in emergencies. As the representative of the INGO community, we are honoured to contribute to ECW’s governance for at least two years, following in the footsteps of World Vision, Save the Children, and Plan International.

In January we held an event for our supporters to share updates on the work and recent milestones in some of our global programmes.
 
Attendees heard from our CEO & Founder Tom Dannatt and several senior programme leaders, Tyler Arnot, Megan Lees-McCowan, Julie Polzerova and Ramya Madhavan, on Street Child's work, including our vision for 2025 to ensure more children can access life-changing education. Our recent response to the cyclone in Mozambique, teaching at the right level (TaRL) programming, and Street Child’s ongoing work in conflict zones like the DRC, North East Nigeria, and Ukraine were central parts of the discussion.
 
Thank you to everyone who attended for your ongoing support of Street Child, which makes this work possible.