Whitehouse Scientific sponsors team at Street Child World Cup
Winning rights for street children worldwide
Over the last five years, the microsphere specialist based in Chester, UK, has had a special relationship with the Mango Tree children’s home in Manila, which rescues disadvantaged children who find themselves in need or on the street.
‘The first stage is to gain their confidence,’ says managing director Graham Rideal, who uses the universal language of music (his tenor sax) to get their attention. ‘Although they love rock and roll music, I was amazed that they know all the words to love song classics such as “I will always love you”’.
Once a dialogue is established with local social workers, there is a good chance that a street child will be accepted into Mango Tree House.
In World Cup year, boys and girls, both in homes and still on the streets of Manila, are competing for places in the Deloitte Street Child World Cup and every place is fiercely contested.
‘It has been tremendously fulfilling to think that I have played a small part in changing the lives of some of these children,’ said Rideal, who is now raising money to send the team across to Durban in South Africa.
The Deloitte Street Child World Cup marks the launch of an Amos Trust initiative aimed at celebrating the potential of street children and providing a platform from which they can be heard.
