our history
Like the youth we support to start small businesses, Street Kids International comes from humble beginnings and the entrepreneurial idea and determination of our founder.
In the mid 1980s in the middle of the Sudanese civil war and Ethiopian famine, Peter Dalglish encountered the street kids of Khartoum who had fled rural war and hunger for the relative security of the city. Without parents and adults they were fending for themselves, always just ahead of the militias and police. Peter saw their resilience and innate street smarts and launched the Street Kids International Bicycle Couriers with borrowed bicycles, new t-shirts and a few mail delivery contracts from local businesses.
The kids earned money and attended Street Kids International’s informal school at night. In 1988, Dalglish returned to Canada where he established Street Kids International, an organization that sought to create other skill-building opportunities for the world’s street youth. From its beginnings, Street Kids International worked with street kids by first recognizing their own promise to support themselves and lead healthy, fulfilling lives.
milestones and achievements.
2011 Marianela Nunez and Thiago Soares agree to become Patrons
2011 Our Expect More for Street Kids campaign launches with an exhibition of photographs from Ethiopia
2010 Street Kids UK takes the Street Business programme to Brazil for the first time
2010 Baroness Manningham-Buller agrees to become our first Patron
2009 Street Kids UK launches a pilot Street Business Toolkit programme in Guayaquil, Ecuador
2009 Street Kids UK starts working with Street Kids Canada on a 3 year Street Business programme in Ethiopia
2008 Street Kids UK collaborates with Street Kids Canada to pilot the Street Business Toolkit in India
2008 Street Kids UK is launched
2008 – Street Kids International Celebrates it’s 20th Anniversary
2007 Street Kids International selected as a finalist for the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize
2005 Street Banking Toolkit is developed with partners in Latin America, to teach youth methods of funding and saving.
2002 Street Kids International holds roundtable at United Nations Special Session on Children and is recognised by Kofi Annan as a Global Best Practice Leader in Youth Work
2001 Speed’s Choice animation about street youth entrepreneurship premieres.
2000 Street Business Toolkit launches in Latin America
1999 Street Health program is launched in Central Asia with the support of Open Society Institute – George Soros’ foundation.
1995 Goldtooth animation about street youth and drug use premieres, and wins top award honours at animation film festival the following year
1989 Karate Kids animation about sexual health premieres. It would go on to win the Peter F. Drucker Award for Non-Profit Innovation in 1993. By 1994 it would be available in 100 countries and 26 languages
1988 Street Kids International established in Toronto.
1987 Street Kids International Bicycle Courier Service launched in Khartoum, Sudan.
