Street Action - Committed to street children through action and partnership

For eighteen years Tom Hewitt has been an activist on behalf of street children in South Africa and beyond. Tom and his wife Bulelwa, are the founders of Umthombo Street Children. He was first exposed to the issue of street children in 1990 in Maputo, Mozambique during the civil war there. He started working with street children in South Africa in 1992, running shelters in the 1990s in the Eastern Cape at a time when street children were not even recognised as an issue.

A report last month in South Africa's Sunday Times highlights how Durban's Metro Police are forcibly removing them from the centre of the city and dumping them on the outskirts, busy freeways or at unregistered shelters with no supervision or social workers support.

As one of the founding members of the SCWC, and a long-term partner of hosts Umthombo Street Children, Nick Turner, co-director of Street Action will be in Durban supporting the event, blogging and tweeting as well as posting a daily three minute film of the highlights from the days events.