About Us

UK Registered Charity No: 1102894

Street Kids Direct is managed by three trustees, Duncan Dyason, Matt Levett and Joe Soden who all give their time as volunteers to the charity and cover the costs of running the charity as well as their own trips to the projects the charity supports.

The charity has a number of volunteers in the UK who help with fundraising events or help promote the plight of the street children as well as volunteers and project workers in Guatemala and Honduras. If you would like to join us then please contact Duncan via the contact page, we would love to have you on board!

Duncan also founded The Toybox Charity and was awarded the Paul Harris Fellowship by the Rotary Foundation for his work in Guatemala. His award-winning book, Miracle Children, covers the early years of his work with the street children of Guatemala. Duncan continues to have a heart for the street children of Guatemala and Honduras and visits there regularly.

Duncan works in Amersham as a handyman and is also involved with helping children in his local church and in many local schools.

Matt Levett is an experienced youth worker and has visited and worked with street children in both Guatemala and Honduras. His heart for the poor and marginalized has also taken him to Poland and Malawi.

Joe Soden has a deep love for children and hates knowing that they are suffering from cruelty. She feels that children are helpless and says that ‘it is totally unfair that they endure life without love, a home and food. I want to fight for those helpless children and that it why I am a trustee for Street Kids Direct’.

Joe had a difficult childhood and that makes her determined to do her part in helping disadvantaged children in Guatemala and Honduras.

Joe is happily married to Russell, has just turned 40 and has 3 boys aged 15, 13 and 11. She is a committed Christian and attends St Leonard’s church, Chesham Bois. Joe loves having fun with her wonderful family and friends and adds ‘I am chained to the kitchen with constant cups of coffee and supplies of food!’.

Herbert Paiz began working on the streets of Guatemala City as a volunteer in 1994 with Duncan and then helped with the establishment of the El Castillo charity in Guatemala, subsequently becoming the Director of the project for 12 years. Herbert is now Director of the Exagris Company, which started in 2007 to help generate funds for the projects Street Kids Direct support, and is also a volunteer worker for the charity.

Jorge & Marta Pinto helped establish the 'Proyecto Manuelito' project in Honduras and play an active part in the day-to-day running of the project.

Jorge was once an orphan and knows from his own experience what it’s like to grow up in difficult and challenging circumstances. He is now pastor of the 'Amor y Vida' church in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and Director of Proyecto Manuelito.

Jeony Ordoñez. Jeony, seen here with a Junior - a boy from the dump, is the founder of AFE, a project helping the children of the dump in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Jeony has also helped establish Proyecto Manuelito and worked for a project called Linda Miller in Honduras, constructing homes for families who lost their homes during hurricane Mitch.

Jeony now dedicates his time to helping the children and their families who are living and working on the city rubbish dump. Jeony’s vision is to transform the city dump into a safe working environment for adults, possibly into a modern recycling operation and for there to be no child working there. He lives very near the dump with his wife Nimia Jesabel and four children - Brayan, Vanessa, Daniella & Chris.

Chris and Richard Rice moved to Guatemala City in May 2000 to work with Duncan in the El Castillo ministry with the specific calling to help run the girl’s home. They emigrated with their two young children, Alex and Bryony, and began to learn to language, understand the culture and help the girls who had been rescued from street life. Three years later they were running a new home for street girls and then in 2005 began a new outreach ministry with ‘high risk’ children and their families.

Chris and Richard’s work has expanded and they have recently planted a church in a very poor area of Guatemala City. Bryony is still studying at a school in Guatemala City and Alex is now training as a aeronautics engineer for the Royal Navy in the UK.

The chair of trustees is Duncan Dyason , seen here with Gladys - a child of the streets. Duncan first became aware of the plight if the street children in 1991 when he saw a BBC Everyman documentary about the abuse and killing of street children in Guatemala.

The following year he moved to Guatemala and in 1993 founded the El Castillo project, establishing a daily outreach programme to hundreds of children and building four children's homes