Christmas for the average child is a time of feast and merry making, with tables laden with delicacies and homes filled with laughter and the rustle of gift wrappings. For others, it is family time and a season to reconnect with friends, creating memories that will be cherished throughout the next year. But for street children, December 26th has become something different, a day when hope arrives in the form of warm meals, kind faces, and the reassurance that they have not been forgotten by the world.
One year after launching the Feed the Street Child , Youth Arise Organization (YAO) returned to the streets on December 26, 2025, with the second edition of the initiative, demonstrating that their commitment to Ghana’s most vulnerable children was not a one-time gesture but a sustained movement of compassion.
The second edition of the campaign revisited Lapaz, Madina Atomic-overhead, and expanded it to include the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) junction. This brought a renewed hope to children whose daily reality remains hunger, uncertainty, and the relentless struggle for survival in Ghana’s unforgiving urban streets.
The ambassadors arrived prepared not just with food and drinks, but with the lessons and wisdom gained from their first campaign. They understood now that these children needed more than temporary relief; they needed to know that someone remembered them, that their lives mattered beyond a single day of charity. As the distribution began, the team witnessed the same heartbreaking urgency they had seen a year before; the desperate rush, the grateful eyes, the small hands clutching at packages of food as though they were treasures beyond measure.
What struck the YAO team most profoundly during this second edition was the recognition on some of the children’s faces. A few remembered the ambassadors from the previous year, their eyes lighting up not just at the sight of food, but at the sight of familiar faces who had returned. These children, still navigating the same dangerous intersections and still begging at the same traffic lights, had held onto something intangible from that first encounter; a glimmer of hope that perhaps they were not invisible after all.
Moses Baffour Awuah, Global CEO of YAO, reflected on the journey from the first campaign to this moment. “When we launched this initiative last year, we made a commitment to these children they are not forgotten. The second edition of Feed the Street Child is our commitment kept,” he shared.
The year between the campaigns had only strengthened the organization’s resolve, as the team witnessed firsthand that the problem had not diminished, if anything, economic pressures had pushed even more children onto the streets, their small frames weaving through traffic in search of coins that might buy them a meal.
The expansion to UPSA brought the campaign to a new territory, reaching children who had never experienced such organized compassion before. At each location, whether the familiar corners of Lapaz or the newly added areas, the story remained heartbreakingly consistent that, children too young to carry such burdens, forced to shoulder the weight of their own survival. Yet in their eyes, especially after receiving meals and hearing words of encouragement, there flickered the unquenchable, resilient and beautiful human spirit that refuses to surrender even in the darkest circumstances.
As the second edition of Feed the Street Child concluded, YAO’s vision crystallized into concrete action plans.
“We urgently need donors and well-wishers to support us with clothes for these children who wear the same tattered garments day after day,” Moses Baffour Awuah emphasized.
“Beyond that, we are working towards building a three-bedroom apartment that will serve as a sanctuary for street children, a place where they can sleep safely, eat regularly, and begin to dream again.”
The second edition proved that consistency matters, that showing up year after year sends the powerful message to forgotten children are seen, valued, and are worth fighting for. Through Feed the Street Child, YAO has transformed a campaign into a tradition of hope, ensuring that for street children, Christmas (boxing day) means more than just another day of survival, it means knowing that someone cares enough to return.
Written by Samuel Nii Adjetey, National Communications Officer
