History

18 years ago Sarah de Carvalho felt the call to give up her job in television with BBC and Sky in London and to go to Brazil to help the street children. Her original plan in 1991 was to stay for only one year between Television contracts, but she was so shocked with what she saw then, with the murders of hundreds of children at the hands of the death squads and the reality that 35% of the street children were dying before they reached the age of 18, that she knew she couldn’t ignore the problem and just leave.

Sarah founded Happy Child International in 1993 in Belo Horizonte - Brazil's 3rd largest city. Today, 16 years on, Happy Child has developed a unique 12-step programme focusing on; Prevention work in the shantytowns – running holiday camps during school holidays to stop kids going to the streets in the first place; Rescue work from the streets; Rehabilitation in our homes; with social care; counselling; education; Re-integration into family and community, and after care. We seek first to re-unite children with their families and if this is not possible then we look after the children until they can be fostered, adopted or leave our care for employment.

Happy Child is now a replicable model of providing children’s services, and has had a strong impact on local government policy in Belo Horizonte. We have run training courses for workers and leaders working with street children and have had over 500 students from all over the world train with us, some of whom have gone on and set up their own charities.

Happy Child has a UK office in Leatherhead, where we fundraise and also raise awareness of the work. 75% of all running costs are raised in Brazil and the UK fund the remaining 25%, as well as 100% funding of any new projects in the first year which then decreases to 25%.