Food Insecurity in the Concrete Jungle

A Concrete Jungle;full of half-finished and abandoned construction,Addis Ababa,Ethiopia is a sea of tin rooftops,and the poverty is inescapable.

Of course,poverty is made most visible by the many beggars and homeless that line the streets.  Of this marginalized population,a most noticeable vulnerability is malnutrition.

Having already fueled unrest in [...]

Vagabond Vagabond

Debre Berhan methodologically confounds. No place is as cold (dark side of the moon) and as hot (Ethiopia/Danakil Depression) than Debre Berhan,Ethiopia. I go to bed in long johns (rainbow stripped) and wake up sweating through my shirt,reaching manically for the bottled water on my table.

I sat down on a bag (50kgs) [...]

This ain’t no cake walkThis ain’t no cake walk

Let’s be frank:working with street kids in developing countries is not a piece of cake. Some things are hard,and some things seem near impossible.

Development rhetoric is great at glossing over these challenges,largely due to the shortage of funds and donor pressure for good results. But I sometimes feel like expectations are [...]

Sun Light,Head lights and Flash Lights:An exploration of the FringesSun Light,Head lights and Flash Lights:An exploration of the Fringes

The last few weeks have been quite the experience,as we embarked on a long awaited set of trips to finally provide beneficiaries of the ‘Linking Rural Youth with Knowledge and Opportunity through Micro-Enterprise’ project with finance in order for them to begin to engage in entrepreneurship in an effort [...]

From the streets to the community

How do kids become street kids? Within the international development realm,we talk about systemic poverty,structural injustice,and lack of opportunities. Within the child protection realm,maybe it’s the failure of national systems to keep children safe – allowing abuse in educational institutions,unrecognized child rights in the legal system,and lack of child [...]

Introducing the Street Source ProjectIntroducing the Street Source Project

What are the options for youth who have grown up on the streets of Manila and want to become independent,productive,and self-sustaining adults? I won’t venture to exhaust the possible answers to this question here,but point out that two options are entrepreneurship and employment.

Traditionally,Street Kids International has focused on entrepreneurship. In [...]

Where are the girls?

Pounding the pavement in the Northern Tanzanian cities of Arusha and Moshi,the street kids are pretty easy to spot. Head to any of the usual spots – the outskirts of the market,the clocktower,the riverbanks – and you’ll see them chatting,hanging around,or catching some shut-eye. Head into the market or just [...]

Kathmandu to Biratnagar and BackKathmandu to Biratnagar and Back

Recently,I had the good fortune to go on a monitoring visit to the Eastern part of Nepal where Street and Practice Business trainings had been delivered in April 2009. The purpose of the visit was twofold;first,to follow up with some of the youth workers who had participated in the training and to [...]

Today's Question:the informal economy - beneficial or detrimental?Today’s Question:the informal economy –beneficial or detrimental?

After spending most of my lifetime in super-regulated Canada,when I first started traveling in “developing”countries,what was one thing that really struck me?

Street vendors.

Whether I was in Guatemala or Burkina Faso or Belize or Togo,it seemed to me that I could literally buy anything my heart desired on the street. Once [...]

Introductions,orientations,impressions…OPO! Introductions,orientations,impressions…OPO!

First I should translate:opo means yes,with respect,in Tagalog.

Today marks exactly one month since departing from Canada and arriving in the Philippines. Time has flown by and a big part of me feels like I am still establishing my first impressions. I suppose this is all relative – when you are prepared [...]