The Pervasive Nature of Violence in the Day-to-Day Lives of Street Children

Abstract

Hope Village Society (HVS) was registered as a legally recognized non-governmental organization (NGO) in 1988, in Cairo, Egypt. It was set up by an Englishman, Richard Hensley, who was the headmaster of the Manor House Language School, where many affluent families sent their children. Hemsley told the people he worked with at the time, many of whom still work with the NGO, that he decided to work with this marginalized group of street children because he found that the available help and sympathies in Egyptian society were directed solely to orphans and the elderly — two groups who already received financial and social care from the state and other sources and who had homes and alternative care centers set up for them. He went on to establish a home that provided services and shelter, in the first instance, to eight street boys he had got to know on the street. When Hemsley passed away, he left his assets to the NGO, and today the charity is home to 200 children who have come off the street and it has provided assistance and services to over 50,000 street children.