We are a young, dynamic organisation set up to do things differently for street children. Established in 2020, our team represents the culmination of multiple, intersecting efforts for street children led by our team in different roles over decades.
Natalie Turgut-Thompson, Founder
Natalie is a dedicated advocate, committed to ensuring street-connected children have access to legal justice. Founding Street Rights is the natural continuation of her 13-year career representing and standing up for the most marginalised children – street-connected children and children affected by conflict – in both international and national policy making fora. At the Consortium for Street Children, she was part of the team advocating for, securing and developing the UN General Comment on Children in Street Situations. And whilst at War Child she concentrated on advancing children’s access to mental health and psychosocial support. Natalie is focused, driven and collaborative. She holds an LLM in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice from SOAS, University of London, with Distinction.
Dr Sarah Thomas de Benitez, Advisory Council
Sarah works in the social justice sector, specialising in child rights, exclusion and street connections. She uses robust evidence-making, participatory evaluation and joined-up practice-to-policy to articulate the case for rights-based structural reform and strength-based programming practices to fulfil children’s rights. Sarah reframed the global research-practice paradigm from ‘street children’ to ‘children with street connections’ through cutting-edge evaluation, scholarship, advocacy and network leadership at the interface of programming, policy and research, transforming the sector. She founded and led two international award-winning NGOs – JUCONI Mexico and JUCONI Ecuador – where she worked in alliance with national and local authorities to provide innovative, results-based services for girls, boys, families and communities affected by violence. Each NGO is rooted in a strong local support base and has built a global reputation for organisational capacity-building, programme management and theory-based trauma therapy.
Professor Lorraine van Blerk, Advisory Council
Lorraine is a Professor in Human Geography at the University of Dundee and Honorary Professor at the Children’s Institute of the University of Cape Town, with a particular focus on children, youth and families and sub-Saharan Africa. She has conducted research with street-connected children and youth in sub-Saharan Africa for over 20 years and has written more than 70 academic and policy related publications in this area. A key element of her research is to understand the complexity of street-connected children’s lives, exploring aspects of their work, lifestyle, crime and subculture as well as the relationships between their identity, mobility and exclusion. As a Research Director for Growing Up On The Streets, Lorraine led the largest and longest qualitative research project on street-connected children across three cities in Africa, leading to the biggest data collection on street-connected children there is. She has a keen interest in ensuring children’s participation in her research and ensuring their voice is heard in the research process, important for creating dialogue between research participants and users, and for informing policy and programme intervention.
Siân Wynne, Trustee
Siân has extensive knowledge of the street-connected children and child rights sectors and a strong track record in working with partners and networks to promote the rights of street-connected children and strengthen rights-based and child-centred practice in frontline services. She has 15 years’ experience of programme management, network building and partner development in the UK, Asia, Africa and Latin America at both grassroots and international levels. Currently she is the Consortium for Street Children’s Director of Programmes for Network, Practice and Children’s Participation. Immediately prior, she was the Director of Programmes at StreetInvest for three years and in January 2022 stepped up as CEO to drive forward the organisation’s coming together with CSC in June 2022.
Matt Hocken, Trustee
Matt is a communications professional, with expertise in creating campaigns and stories that leave a lasting impact, motivate action and create behaviour change. With 15 years’ experience spanning both the non-profit and commercial sectors Matt is skilled at conveying complex information to diverse audiences. His charity clients have included the Doddy Weir Foundation, RNIB, British Heart Foundation and Stonewall Rainbow Laces. He is currently the Head of Creative at Mongoose where he leads on developing campaigns and strategies for both commercial and non-profit clients.
Simon Le Gouais, Trustee (Treasurer)
Simon is a finance and operations professional with over 20 years’ experience working in the not for profit and charitable sector. He is currently the Director of Finance and Resources at the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance but has worked across a range of different sized organisations. He was Head of Programme Finance for Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor and has held roles at the BBC’s international development charity, BBC Media Action. He was also a founding Director of a media development non-profit. Simon brings practical experience in managing all finance functions of a charity and also supports the governance, operations and Board effectiveness and development of Street Rights.