This year We supported 44,449 street children and their families

The challenge

Toybox supported children in street situations - and often their family members - to register their births and access their birth certificates. This is a critical foundation for them to claim their right to a name, a nationality, and state supported services, and start making steps towards a safer life away from the streets.

This year, we supported 2,335 children, young people and adults from Bolivia, Guatemala, India, Kenya and Nepal to access their birth certificates or legal identity documents. We also hit an important milestone, with over 10,000 children now registered since we started our birth registration programming in 2013.

The impact

The challenge

Many children in street situations face barriers to education, including financial constraints, discrimination, and lack of support from family. Toybox works to address these challenges by collaborating with schools, reducing discrimination, providing financial assistance, and supporting parents while also offering non-formal and alternative education to equip children with essential skills. This year we supported 2,233 children to attend school – that is 74 classrooms with 30 children in each!

In Nepal, a Mobile School was integrated within the existing education project enabling an increased reach of activities to over 400 children. This 'school on wheels' goes to where the children are, reducing barriers to formal education.

The impact

The challenge

Extreme poverty is a huge factor in pushing children onto the streets, where they often engage in risky work for minimal wages to support themselves and their families.

Toybox supports these children to break the cycle of poverty and street living by training young people and care-givers in business skills, facilitating savings groups, and providing startup capital and ongoing support to establish income-generating businesses, as well as offering vocational training and apprenticeships for direct employment opportunities.

The impact

The challenge

Children in street situations face constant uncertainty, exposure to harsh conditions, and increased risks of illness, injury, and addiction. Toybox supports projects to provide first aid, medical assistance, and vital mental health support to address their physical and psychological needs, helping them create a path to a better future through personalised 'life plans'.

In Sierra Leone, around 500 ecofriendly menstrual pads were designed and produced by ten female entrepreneurs to improve menstrual hygiene. These were distributed to girls and women in the community and some were sold for profit to enable production to continue.

The impact

The challenge

Children and young people in street situations often face legal issues due to their lifestyle and lack of protection.

Toybox supports access to justice by teaching them their rights, offering legal representation in court, and advocating for fairer sentences. In Kenya, Toybox's partner PKL has reduced the average sentence from 2 ears to 10 months for 71 young people, often leading to acquittal, probation, or out-of-court settlements.

The impact

The challenge

Toybox has supported various emergency interventions over previous years, including Covid response and disaster relief. In the past year, this kind of emergency support has mainly focused on malnutrition response programmes in response to cost-of-living crises.

Children in Guatemala benefitted from an emergency nutritional support project started in response to rising levels of malnutrition as a result of the cost-of-living crisis.

In Nepal, families in street situations were provided with emergency food support and the children were supported with education kits including bags and books to enable them to continue with their schooling.

The impact

The challenge

A foundation to Toybox's work is educating children, caregivers, and communities about Child Rights and protection and addressing the disparities in realising these rights.

For example, in El Salvador, children have been learning about their protection rights, while parents and caregivers have been educated on creating safe environments. In Kenya, Toybox partners with Local Area Advisor Councils to train them in identifving and reporting abuse cases, resulting in 672 cases reported in the past year.

The impact