Resources

Growing up on the Streets

Growing up on the Streets is our award-winning, longitudinal, participatory research project.

Growing up on the Streets has given a voice to 198 street-connected youth over three years, in three African cities: Accra in Ghana, Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Harare, in Zimbabwe.

The research aimed to challenge the binary view that children are at risk ‘on’ the streets but safe ‘off’ them. It reveals the complexity of life and choices available to young people in these three cities and seeks to better inform both practical interventions and policy.

Growing up on the Streets is an international collaboration between street youth, street workers and academic and charity partners and is funded by Backstage Trust, with Knowledge Exchange funding from the UK’s Economic & Social Research Council. The research is lead by the University of Dundee.

Awards for Growing up on the Streets

MRS President’s Medal: 2015. The President’s Medal is awarded annually to an organisation or individual that has made an extraordinary contribution to research. StreetInvest was chosen as the winner by President of MRS, Dame Dianne Thompson, Chair of MRS Richard Silman and CEO of MRS Jane Frost.

Stephen Fry Award for Public Engagement, Project of the Year: 2017. The annual Stephen Fry Award recognises the work of outstanding staff and students in communicating University of Dundee’s research and practice to a wider audience.

The Story Maps

Growing up on the Streets has co-produced three story maps with street children and youth – online resources with films, photographs and narrative accounts produced with young people themselves.

In the Shadow of a Pandemic: Harare's street youth experience of COVID

Growing up on the Streets: A story map by Accra's street youth

Street life in the city on the edge: street youth recount their daily lives in Bukavu

2REST Responsibilities for Resilience Embedded in Street Temporalities: mapping street youth lived resiliencies through analysis of secondary data

2REST Responsibilities for Resilience Embedded in Street Temporalities is a two-year project analysing secondary data from Growing up on the Streets using a multisystemic resilience approach and involving international partners including early career researchers and street youth.

2REST has delivered a significant evidence base on the nature of street youth multisystemic resilience and the support required from policy and practice linked to the principles of the United Nations General Comment 21, on the Rights of Children in Street Situations (UNGC21), offering tools and applications for improving the lives and opportunities for street young people across Africa and globally and helping street youth to achieve adult lives they value.

2REST builds capacity through training and analysis, to create impactful, practical outcomes that can be used in policy development and implementation and street youth engagement.