‘If you respect us...listen to us’: how sporting event media reframes or reinforces representations of street-connected children

Advocacy programmes targeting street-connected children involve changing public and policy makers’ perceptions about this group of often stigmatised children. Increasingly, such programmes centre leisure activities, sports, and sporting events as potential platforms for sharing messages aimed at effecting social change. For effective impact, such advocacy goals require that safe spaces are developed for emerging children’s political messages and managing media narratives to centralise their individual challenges and, more importantly, the root-causes of their street-connectedness. In part influenced by an Ecological Framework for Human Development, we explore how the media engage meaningfully with Street Child United (SCU) events and how they represent street-connected children. Thematically analysing this media coverage, we explore SCU partners’ relationships with the media and whether advocacy messages are communicated coherently and consistently. We found that messages of advocacy and children’s rights are present, but inconsistently framed, reinforcing a binary between pity and inspiration, and limiting opportunities of challenging public perceptions and effecting change. For SCU, similar sports event organisers, and civil society organisations to successfully determine media narratives, they need to develop strategies to manage relationships and more continuous engagement with the media and other stakeholders to sustain interest and leverage impact.