Street children's World Cup

19 March 2010: Jet-lagged after a sleepless night on a bumpy plane to Johannesburg – Shona and I are jolted from our hazy state by the buzz here in South Africa. The World Cup may be more than 2 months away but football fever has already started.

We hear the crowd before we even see the stadium – a cacophony of fans screaming, horns blaring and drums beating. 500 people are going wild as Tanzania has just scored against favourites Brazil.

This is the Street Child World Cup in Durban. Competing are 8 teams made up of former street children from Brazil, India, Nicaragua, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Ukraine and UK.

Girl players

Shona and I take a seat in the upstairs gallery to watch the next match – Nicaragua versus India. We look down and spot a girl playing in each team – the squads have a minimum of 2 girls, with at least one on the pitch.

It’s these girls we’ve come to film. Later in the week, Plan will run a workshop with the children looking at violence against street girls. In the meantime, Shona and I will follow 6 girls on their journey through the competition and learn about their lives on the street.

Awesome spectacle

We look down and are struck by the awesome spectacle below. A Nicaraguan girl, Marcia, is standing up to fierce tackling from the Indian team.

She is knocked down and each time gets up to carry on playing. What better symbol could there be of girls’ empowerment than these girls playing in such a male-dominated game and matching the boys for passion and commitment?

As another girl player from the Philippines said: "It was great to watch Marcia. She tried so hard and wasn’t weak when she played – she played like a boy!”