With the world cup here there will be the third Street child world cup being held in Moscow. This is where children who live on the streets around the world will all come together and have their own world cup tournament. With up to 150 million children living on the streets across the world, what better way to get their voices heard.

Over two hundred children will come together to have their own football tournament, have a festival of arts and congress for their rights. There will be 24 teams from different nations playing with mixed boys and girls teams, they will be playing to change the negative perception and treatment of children everywhere.

This is all put together by Street Child United and their overall aim is to allow children to have their own voice. They are trying to tackle the stigma around street-connected children and what they face, raise awareness and understanding of their situation. Street children should be protected, respected and supported to realise their fullest potential.

They have well known ambassadors such as Sir Alex Ferguson, David Beckham and Michael Johnson, who all support the street child games.

Street child began in 2010 in South Africa, the children were all street children aged between 14-16 years old, all children who participated had lived full time on the streets with no family around them. The second street child world cup was held in Brazil in 2014 and as stated above the third will be held in Moscow this year. In the Brazilian Street child world cup their were 200 street children from 19 countries in the football tournament, it attracted global support from Pope Francis, Prince William and Harry.

The impact of Street child world cup has done the following –

  • Team Pakistan led a country wide I AM SOMEBODY tour culminating in a national resolution to better protect the rights of 1.5 million Pakistani children.
  • Brazilian Government invited TEAM BRAZIL to host a summit on the national policy for street children
  • TEAM KENYA’S captain now sits on the Mombasa children’s assembly advising on the rights of Kenya’s street children
  • TEAM TANZANIA shared their triumphs with the prime minster of Tanzania. The Constitutional Parliament of Tanzania, consisting of 600 MP’s was temporarily suspended to welcome the team home.

The guardian published a story about some the children involved in the Street child world cup. One of the children used to live on the streets due to his mum and dad splitting up, he decided to live with his dad but later found he was smoking Crack and did not want to be around it, he built a life on the streets. Another girl lived on the streets and was reportedly always shot at by people driving by. A lot of the children involved in the Street child world cup struggle to get a passport to travel because they do not even know their date of birth, let alone hold a birth certificate for themselves.