About The Toybox Charity

Life is no game for the 1000’s of children living on the streets of Latin Americas towns and cities.

Thanks to people such as yourself, The Toybox Charity supports a comprehensive rescue and rehabilitation programme for street children in Guatemala and Bolivia, giving them a loving home, education and hope for the future.

For those wishing to sponsor a child, a programme of place sponsorship is available providing continuous financial support for a place in one of the homes. From only £18 a month (60p a day) you can help support the costs of caring for a child, their education and may other aspects of their life.

The Toybox Charity also works with poor communities to break the cycle of poverty and prevent children becoming homeless.

The charity works with local partners in the countries that we work in, El Castillo in Guatemala and Red Viva in Bolivia.

Our history

The Toybox Charity was founded in 1992 initially to support Duncan and Jenni Dyason in their new work with the street children of Latin America.

The couple, accompanied by their one-year-old daughter, Katelyn, left the UK for Guatemala, Central America, in September of that same year.

Exactly one year after their arrival in Guatemala, Duncan and Jenni, together with their small but dedicated Guatemalan team, kicked off the project and El Castillo, Guatemala, was born (El Castillo means 'The Castle' in Spanish).

The philosophy was simple, to go to the children where they were and to try to befriend them with a view to helping them and ultimately rescuing them from the streets.

One evening a week, the small team would leave for the streets, looking for groups of homeless children. It took a long time to establish friendships with the children, because they were not used to adults being kind to them.

A few weeks later, a local church offered them the use of its premises to run a club and drop-in centre for the children. It was here that a full-time programme was established and funding secured from the UK to employ team members as well as to pay for equipment and supplies for the children.

From these early beginnings, the work has grown quickly and the charity now has a comprehensive outreach programme for street children.

This includes permanent family-style homes for the rescued children, a day centre, hostel and high-risk teams, helping a total of over 650 street children and high risk children every week.

Despite the growth and changes of personnel, the ethos of the charity remains the same, recognising that each child is an individual, and bringing hope and love where there was none.