Our Aims
- To develop and maintain accessible educational, health-care, nutritional and recreational programs designed for children and their families.
- To increase public awareness about the plight of children forced to live and work on the streets of Brazil.
About the Street Angels Consortium
Street Angels was founded in 1988 by Canadian social worker Miriam Ulrych along with Luiz Barbosa, and Josefa Santos. The original aim was to keep as many children as possible off the streets of Salvador, Bahia Brazil – from these humble beginnings, the project has grown into an efficient grass roots network with support spanning Canada, Brazil and the UK.
The efforts of the Street Angels consortium have been focused on Dona Aurora, a small community on the outskirts of Salvador, Brazil. When the project began working in this community, the 2000 mostly illiterate and unemployed residents were living in crowded shack housing and lacked basic amenities such as clean drinking water, electricity, rubbish collection, health care and schooling for their children.
On a shoestring budget, Street Angels has managed to provide security and opportunity for the children of Dona Aurora and create a wider sense of community and self sufficiency for all residents.
Thanks to the incredible hard work and perseverance of our Brazilian project leaders and team of dedicated volunteers, we have achieved many amazing successes:
- Clean water, electricity and refuse collection services
- Improved living conditions through the construction and renovation of housing
- Construction of a modern elementary school
- Subsidized primary education through a unique fostering education Program
- Built, equipped and maintained a community health centre providing free, front-line care to over 1,500 women and children annually
- Facilitated the development of five active self-help and community development groups
- Constructed a training centre and organized dozens of skill-building and small business initiatives to help generate alternatives to child labour
- Increased public awareness about the exploitation, abuse and murder of children who are forced by poverty to live and work in the streets
- Helped strengthen the communities capacity to defend their basic human rights.
About Street Angels UK & Mr Bongo Worldwide
Street Angels UK was founded in 1994 by David Buttle of Mr Bongo Worldwide Ltd. (at the time, an established international dealer in Latin American music and record label) to promote and raise funds for the project from the United Kingdom. Mr Bongo Worldwide donates a set amount of money to the charity each month, as well as an additional percentage from other incomes.
Since the inception of Street Angels UK , we have had a huge range of successes such as the establishment of the ‘Escola Comunitaria de Anjos de Rua’ - ‘The Street Angels Community School’ and the founding of a local healthcare centre to address the health needs of the community.
The funds raised by Street Angels UK helps to hire medical staff and develop new health programmes. Street Angels UK currently funds a paediatrician and gynaecologist and offers specialised screening for illnesses that affect the children and their families.
To date, the health centre to date has provided care to 1500 women and children annually. The health centre has with illnesses common to the community such as tuberculosis, dysentery, dengue fever, parasites, high blood pressure, sickle-cell anaemia and parasitic diseases such as worms and chagas disease.