Street Child United (SCU) is delighted to announce a three-year partnership with Rawbank to run the "1 million d’espoirs" development programme dedicated to sport and improving the skills and independence of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The partnership will be implemented in two phases; the first two years of the programme will provide a ‘train-the-trainer’ format with selected partner organisations working on the ground in the DRC. SCU will provide a tailored curriculum that delivers football sessions and human rights workshops in conjunction with SCU values, upskilling selected coaches, to deliver to hundreds of young people.

The programme, is built to be sustainable with participating projects taking full ownership once SCU has provided all training components. This will further increase the impact and reach over forthcoming years. The second phase will run from the start of 2025 and will focus on capacity building across advocacy, media, and fundraising, so that the DRC can send a boys and girls team to participate at the Street Child World Cup in 2026 in North America.

Speaking about the partnership, SCU founder and CEO John Wroe comments: “This is such an exciting partnership derived from a shared common goal, that young people in the DRC who have endured years of struggle following ongoing conflict and widespread disease, will now receive opportunity and hope that inspires belief in themselves to create a better future”.

“We believe that one football impacts 30 children, it teaches the values of community building, teamwork, healthy exercise, competition, and we think, respect for rules, and might just create some football stars for the future, just imagine the impact of 100,000 soccer balls, and this is just the start!” said Mustafa Rawji, CEO of Rawbank

From 2024, 100,000 footballs will be distributed as part of the programme to enable more street connected children in the DRC to have the opportunity to play football.

ABOUT RAWBANK

For 20 years, Rawbank has been supporting the development of the Congolese economy. It offers the most modern products and services to its 500,000+ corporate, SME and individual customers through a network of 100 sales outlets in 19 provinces of the country, including Greater Katanga, Greater Kasai, the two Kivus, Equateur and Central Kongo. In addition to this vast network of branches, there is a representative office in Brussels and 240 ATMs. With more than 1,800 employees, Rawbank has a market share of over 30%. Solidity, profitability and sustainability are Rawbank's priorities for consolidating its growth strategy. Its work has been rewarded with the African Bankers Award 2022 for the best regional bank in Central Africa, a Moody's CAA 1 rating, ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO/IEC 27001 certifications. Partners who trust RAWBANK include: IFC, AfDB, TDB, BADEA, Shelter Africa, AGF.

ABOUT STREET CHILD UNITED

Street Child United uses the power of sport to change the way the world negatively sees and treats streetconnected young people, so they can be protected, respected, and supported to build a life away from the streets.

Ahead of the world’s biggest sporting competitions, Street Child United organises international sports events for street-connected children to be seen and their voices heard on a level playing field.

The charity’s flagship initiative is the Street Child World Cup, an international football tournament and congress for street-connected children which kicks off-ahead of each FIFA World Cup. The first Street Child World Cup took place in South Africa 2010. There has subsequently been Street Child World Cups in Brazil (2014), Moscow (2018) and Qatar (2022). In 2019, the first Street Child Cricket World Cup was hosted in London and Cambridge ahead of the ICC World Cup. The next Street Child Cricket World Cup will be hosted in Chennai, India, from the 20th - 30th September 2023, in partnership with the Shree Dayaa Foundation. For further information on the work of Street Child United visit www.streetchildunited.org