Duncan Dyason MBE
Duncan is the founder and director of Street Kids Direct and the founder of TOYBOX (the charity) and three charities in Guatemala.
In 1992, Duncan moved to Guatemala City, Guatemala, to work with the estimated 5,000 children who were living on the streets of the city. His first book MIRACLE CHILDREN won UK Christian Book of the Year in 1998 and tells the story of those early years and his numerous experiences of seeing God transform the lives of hundreds of abandoned and runaway children.
His second book THE LAST CHILD is due to be released later in 2024 and continues the story of God´s grace and power at work in the most challenging of environments.
Duncan continues to live and work in Guatemala City and is now embarking on his biggest challenge yet – to map the locations of street-living children around the world.
MIRACLE CHILDREN
This second edition of Duncan´s award-winning book follows his early life and Christian conversion, followed by his call to Christian ministry and to work with street children in Guatemala.
Now available on Amazon in paperback, hardback, and to download to Kindle devices.
Also available in Spanish.
Duncan Dyason was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2017 for his 25 years of work with street children in Guatemala. The award was presented by the then Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace.
ABANDONED STREET KIDS
During the 1980s, the number of abandoned and runaway children on the streets of Guatemala City increased dramatically. This tragic rise was driven largely by the country’s 36-year civil war, during which thousands of indigenous families were displaced as they fled violence, persecution, and military operations in rural communities.
Many families arrived in the capital with little more than the clothes they were wearing, settling in overcrowded informal settlements where poverty, unemployment, and inadequate housing were widespread. Unable to cope with the pressures of extreme hardship, family breakdown became increasingly common, leaving many children vulnerable to neglect, abandonment, exploitation, or life on the streets.
For countless children, the streets became both their home and their means of survival, exposing them to violence, substance abuse, criminal exploitation, and the daily struggle to meet their most basic needs.
A BBC Everyman Documentary, “THEY SHOOT CHILDREN, DON´T THEY?” in 1991, highlighted the plight of the thousands of street children and how police and others were routinely torturing and killing them.
