Formula E and Street Child Unite around a new education fund designed to protect children’s education when climate disasters destroy schools. This initiative focuses on fast repairs, safe learning spaces, and long-term youth empowerment in communities at high climate risk.
Formula E and Street Child Unite for a Climate Education Fund
Formula E, the first all-electric motorsport, and international charity Street Child Unite through a new Climate Response Accelerator Fund. This education fund focuses on schools in Sierra Leone hit by intense storms and floods linked to climate change.
The partnership builds on support from Liberty Global, a majority shareholder of Formula E and long-time ally of Street Child. Formula E provides an initial financial contribution, while both partners commit to shared communications to raise more resources across the sport’s global audience.
Protecting children’s education in climate‑hit communities
In Sierra Leone and across West Africa, rising temperatures and unpredictable rainfall bring stronger storms. Roofs are ripped off, classrooms flood, and learning materials are destroyed. For children living in fragile conditions, months without school often lead to permanent dropout.
The new Formula E and Street Child Unite initiative aims to shorten this gap. By funding rapid repairs to classrooms, latrines, and safe water points, the education fund supports fast returns to learning. This protects children’s education at the moment when it is most at risk.
This focus on continuity responds to global alerts about wider threats to schooling, similar to the challenges discussed around public education funding under pressure in other regions.
How the Climate Response Accelerator Fund safeguards children’s education
The Climate Response Accelerator Fund works as a rapid-response mechanism dedicated to child safeguarding in education. After a storm or flood, Street Child’s local partners quickly assess damage, coordinate with communities, and start urgent repair work.
Speed matters. Every week of delay after a climate disaster increases the risk of early marriage, child labor, and long-term exclusion from school. The joint Formula E and Street Child Unite effort targets this critical window.
Key priorities of the education fund on the ground
The Climate Response Accelerator Fund directs resources where the impact on children’s education is highest. It focuses on simple, robust solutions that get classrooms functioning again.
- Rapid school repairs: fix roofs, walls, floors, and furniture so children return to safe classrooms quickly.
- Child safeguarding measures: ensure safe routes to school, secure buildings, and separate facilities for girls and boys.
- Basic learning materials: replace destroyed books, blackboards, and teaching aids.
- Community engagement: involve parents and local leaders to support attendance and protect vulnerable learners.
- Targeted educational support: offer catch-up lessons so students regain learning lost during closures.
These steps mirror broader debates on how to protect learning when systems come under stress, similar to concerns raised in contexts such as special education funding cuts and financial crises affecting early education.
Street Child Unite experience in child safeguarding and crisis education
Street Child brings more than 15 years of experience in fragile and emergency contexts. From conflict-affected regions in Nigeria to cyclone-hit Mozambique and war-torn areas like the frontlines of Ukraine, the organisation has supported street children, displaced learners, and out-of-school youth.
This history shapes a strong approach to child safeguarding. Local partners identify children most at risk, such as girls, children with disabilities, and those living or working on the streets. Support includes psycho-social help, safe school access, and practical educational support to keep them learning.
Case study: from damaged school to youth empowerment
Take Mariama, a fictional 11-year-old from a coastal village in Sierra Leone, whose school roof collapsed during a night storm. For weeks, classes stopped, and her family considered sending her to work in a nearby town. Without prompt support, her education would likely end.
Through the Climate Response Accelerator Fund, local partners organise temporary learning spaces, repair the roof, and supply new materials. Community members help rebuild, and Mariama returns to class within weeks instead of months. This small, focused intervention represents practical youth empowerment: her chance to stay in school and plan for secondary education is preserved.
Similar principles guide work with highly marginalised groups worldwide, like initiatives on empowering homeless children through schooling in urban settings.
Formula E, social responsibility, and education funding
Formula E has built its identity around sustainability and innovation. By supporting an education fund linked to climate resilience, the championship extends its environmental message to a social responsibility agenda focused on children’s education.
The partnership with Street Child Unite shows how global sports properties influence public debates on climate, equity, and access to learning. Sponsorship no longer stops at branding; it includes long-term commitments to community impact.
Why this nonprofit partnership matters for global education
This nonprofit partnership addresses two converging trends. First, climate shocks disrupt learning for tens of millions of children worldwide. Second, traditional aid budgets face pressure, as seen in debates on UNICEF funding for children’s education and the wider global education funds linked to major sports bodies.
By joining forces, Formula E and Street Child Unite demonstrate another path. Private sector engagement, when tied to strong local partners, provides agile resources at the exact moment families need support. This approach complements state systems and international agencies rather than replacing them.
The message is clear: climate action and protection of children’s education must progress together.
Building long-term resilience in education for street children and vulnerable learners
Rapid-response repair is only one part of the solution. For street children, displaced youth, and children in remote villages, long-term resilience depends on stronger systems, inclusive schools, and steady funding.
Street Child and Formula E help communities think beyond the next storm. Reinforced roofs, improved drainage, and better school design reduce damage from future floods. Training for teachers and community leaders strengthens local protection networks for the most vulnerable children.
Connecting child safeguarding to wider funding debates
Conversations around the Climate Response Accelerator Fund link directly to wider questions of who pays for safe, inclusive education. Public budgets face competing demands, and political decisions sometimes redirect resources away from inclusive schooling, as seen in disputes about parents’ concerns over disability funding or allocations to contentious programs such as gender-related initiatives in education.
In contexts where public or donor funding becomes unstable, children on the margins lose first. The Formula E and Street Child Unite cooperation highlights how targeted educational support can protect those learners when systems falter.
For educators and parents following global developments, this offers a practical example of how sport, NGOs, and communities align to keep children’s education safe in a warming world.