John Rowe, founder and chief executive of Street Child United, told meeting attendees that the charity will use the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America to press for identity documents, education access, protection from violence and gender equality for street children.

Rowe said Street Child United joined the Football for the Goals initiative in 2022 to "amplify the voices of the young people that we serve," and described the group’s strategy of staging a Street Child World Cup alongside FIFA tournaments to draw attention to those children's four demands: identity, access to education, protection from violence and gender equality.

The plan for 2026, Rowe said, includes bringing 12 girls’ teams and 12 boys’ teams to the Street Child World Cup, creating 101 young leaders, opening 1,001 higher-education places and "leveraging 1,000,001 identities" through outreach tied to the FIFA World Cup. Rowe said the organization announced those goals at a 2022 event in Qatar.

Why it matters: Rowe framed identity — specifically birth registration and official identification — as foundational. "Identity is so important for us because that opens up all the other rights that these young people have," he said, arguing that having an identity enables access to education, services and legal protections.

Rowe cited past results to illustrate the campaign’s potential. He said a team returning to Pakistan prompted a national census of street children that government officials had never previously undertaken. He said a girls’ team from India met with "Malika Sanjay of Gandhi," who promised to provide Aadhaar cards for 6 million street children (the transcript provided the name and figure as stated by Rowe). He also said the president of the Bolivian senate announced removal of birth-registration fees for the country’s poorest 20 percent following engagement at a recent Street Child World Cup.

Rowe recounted an origin story used to explain the program’s purpose: meeting a boy named Andile in South Africa who had lived on the streets and told Rowe, "When people see me on the streets, they say I'm a street child. But when they see me playing football, they say I am a person." Rowe said the tournament model was designed to challenge stigma and give young people public identities and authority.

Rowe described a young-leaders program built around former street children who now represent their countries and serve as ambassadors. "They are the best ambassadors for what we do because they've benefited the most," he said.

The presentation emphasized partnership and movement-building: Rowe said that being part of Football for the Goals gives Street Child United solidarity and reach, and that large-scale change requires other actors — governments, civil-society partners and sporting organizations — to act on the organization's demands.

Rowe did not specify the funding sources, timeline for implementation or the steps required from national governments to meet the 2026 targets. He said he hopes to return in 2026 and report that the program achieved its goals.