Principles

Business people call this working the ‘gaps in the market’. Applied for us, this means focussing where no-one else is relieving suffering.   Before we established Street Child Makeni, no other organisation had explicitly cared for street children for four years.  

It is a sacred belief at SCoSL that when people give to charity, they want as much as possible to go to cause itself.

With no paid staff or central over-head costs in the UK, we ensure that every penny given to our work is spent where it is needed, and where the giver meant it to be spent - Sierra Leone. Further, by only employing local staff and by rigorously pruning and stretching budgets we ensure wastage is absolutely minimised and spending on the children absolutely maximised (click here for Street Child Makeni budget).

All donations go direct to our projects account which is used exclusively for spend in Sierra Leone.

Making a difference is not only about minimising wastage – it is about making the very best use of what you have. This is exactly why we chose to work with HANCi as our partner - their track-record at changing children’s lives and community attitudes is inspirational. Their capacity to deliver exceptional street-children’s programmes is evident - in the miracles they are already working in Street Child Makeni, but in their prior and ongoing work with other partner-charities in Bo (especially) & Freetown. Their methods are proven and tested. There is no need to re-invent the wheel – we just need to give more power to their elbow. (please click here to learn more about HANCi)

HANCi’s professional child-care expertise and deep local knowledge and experience, in harness with the professional skills of SCoSL’s trustee-directors and supporters across development project management, child protection, human rights, charity law, commerce and business administration create a team powerfully placed to deliver real results (please click here to learn more about our UK-team).

HANCi was selected as our partner on two grounds: its capacity to deliver (see above) but also its avowed probity and integrity. Development money has a notoriously ‘sticky’ history in much of Africa.

Major organisations such as Comic Relief and KPMG have monitored and audited HANCi for years without finding. We commend the integrity of our partner. (please click here to learn more about HANCi)

In tandem with our aim of ‘maximum inclusivity’, a particular aim of SCoSL is to be uniquely transparent. For example, this web-site contains detailed monthly reports on all our work (documenting both successes and ‘challenges’), copies of official project steering documents, clear budget break-downs – and if there is ever any area you would like more information on, you only have to ask.

We believe local people are most often the best people to address the problems of their communities. Which is why we work with a national partner; why the vast majority of the Street Child Makeni staff are from Makeni and above all why we work hand-in-hand with the communities we work in. The solution is known and local, it pre-dates SCoSL – what SCoSL provides is the power for the solution to be in placed in effect.

SCoSL has one goal – to reduce the number of children living on the street. We work towards this with two classes of action – one curative: caring for the children on the street and trying to reconcile them with their families; one preventative: stopping children coming to the street. A stitch in time can save nine.

Our chief preventative or ‘upstream’ work is the promotion of child rights and better standards of community child care (click here for more detail) – an approach which draws on the insight that child rights abuses are a key driver of children to the street (click here for more detail)

Let’s be frank. This is harder to get excited about than saving children on the street. It is less tangible. It feels more ‘wishy-washy’. But we believe it is making a huge impact - and although it is harder to apprehend than the core street child work, we ask everyone to really support this branch of our work. Our reports ( click here ) carry substantial detail on our out-reach activities.

Our child rights work stands on the shoulders of our practical work with the children. Without the practical work we would be whistling in the wind. Talk is relatively easy and commitment free - and people are not interested in just talkers in Sierra Leone: the imminent needs are too great.

Our work with the children however earns us the respect and ear of the community - and it is how we can multiply the impact of our achievements with the children. Our practical work makes a curative difference, but critically it opens the door to us making an upstream or preventative impact through community awareness as well.

Business people do what it takes to realise the biggest profit. They hunt out the best opportunities, the best people to do business with; they are flexible. Our approach is no different – our goal is to see a brighter Sierra Leone with less children leading hopeless lives on the streets - so every action, plan or decision chases this vision, imaginatively, flexibly and without pre-conception.

Axiomatic in the business community, less so in the development community - which has so for long measured itself by the size, not the impact of its donations. SCoSL strictly asks to be judged by what it achieves in Sierra Leone, not by the amount of money we raise or spend (which is why significant provision has been made in the Street Child Makeni budget for assessment and monitoring of our work).

Almost all the above can be captured in the one governing thought of 'maximum return' click here to view how we see these values flowing together, to achieve what we believe is effectively maximum (social) return, or result – for investors, our donors. That is to say how every decision or move we make is governed by the thought – how can we make the biggest impact with the resources open to us.