War Child supports six centres for street children in Kinshasa, enabling us to work with and support over 2,000 street children and many more who are at risk of being pushed onto the streets. And we are multiplying our impact by our advocacy which, on the one hand, is addressing the attitudes that underlie this problem and, on the other, enables us to influence policies in a way that benefit many more children than we could possibly hope to work with directly.

Because there are so many children suffering on the streets of Kinshasa, War Child has been careful to choose centres that other organisations do not work with. In fact, our target is those centres which have very limited capacity.  In this way, we are better able to coordinate our collective efforts with the work of others and ensure a wider impact.

Nevertheless, it is absolutely vital that our support of the centres is sustainable so that we can reach more children by working with more centres. With this in mind, we have helped the centres by training their staff in business planning and have provided them with a grant to set up an income generating project so that they are, in time, able to cover their own costs. One of the centres I visited today has bought a grinding mill and charges people in the local community to grind maize into flour. The business model their staff took me through this afternoon indicates that by August the centre will be in a position to cover all its running cost and keep enough back to cover the service costs/replacement of the mill over the long term.

This in turn gives the children security. And children like Delphin need that security. And care.

The children are involved in the running of their centres, and even sit on their management committees. They are the experts on what it is like on the streets and so they are best placed to influence the decisions of our partners in a way that ensures their work on the streets has the greatest impact. These management committees are part of a broader structure that we have established. The committees involve local authorities and community leaders to coordinate the plans to address the acute problems faced by street children across several of the worst hit areas of the city.

The centres use this as a platform to hold open days, with assistance from War Child, which bring in the local community to gain their support and foster their responsibility for the children we work with. This has been particularly effective in overcoming the stigma that the children live with. It also enables us to help place the older children we provide vocational training for in employment.

Most importantly, through this wider community engagement we have been able to enroll senior policemen and judges who have been particularly helpful in resolving cases where the children we work with have come into conflict with the law.

And coming into conflict with law can be a brutal experience for street children.

Over the next 12 months we hope to increase the number of children we can offer protection to by extending our support to more centres for street children. I hope you will be able to join us in this mission by learning more about what we do and offering support where you can.