Pros
There is genuine innovation among the programmatic interventions, and in some instances, Street Child is acting where others aren't. Though there is a bit of a gap between the stated uniqueness of the work and the reality, i.e. plenty of international NGOs prioritise local action and local voices, and it's sometimes implied that Street Child came up with the idea of Teaching at the Right Level or Income-generating activities, where these are actually commonplace. Junior and middle management staff are mostly excellent, talented, kind people, working incredibly hard in a context where the internal management culture impedes rather than facilitates.
Cons
The senior leadership do not care about their employees - there is a long-standing practice of hiring people straight out of university where people don't know any better about what to expect from the world of work, and pushing them to a point where they struggle and either quit, in which case they don't fit the "fast-paced agile culture" at Street Child (i.e. victim-blaming), or if they last for a few years, they are really rewarded for their loyalty, and there is a strong sense of favoritism for certain staff. If you come in mid-career, then you don't really fit into either of these camps, and they don't really know what to do with you. Street Child has no willingness to learn from what other organisations do well. This makes it very hard if you have ideas that originate from non-Street Child experience. It means that you have to do a lot of managing upwards if you want to bring in anything you've learnt externally - framing ideas in a way that appeals to senior managers, encouraging them to think it's their idea that you are just finding a way to implement, not mentioning sources for best practice in case it triggers a negative response. The executive leadership team is chaotic at best, and malicious at worst. They change their minds at random - or if it's not random, don't justify why they make certain decisions - and have been known to take significant programmatic decisions without consulting staff. They take a very long time to discuss anything around promotion or change in responsibilities, or change in work pattern, which is really frustrating, even if requested contractual changes are only to make sure that paperwork reflects reality. HR capacity is almost non-existent, so raising issues is extremely difficult. While having a married couple at the top of an organisation is not unheard of, there is absolutely nothing in place to manage this extreme conflict of interest - the Board should really look at this. How the Board has not raised severe concerns over the constant flow of staff out of the organisation and the short average tenure also calls into question their ability to effectively hold the organisation to account. There's also a lot that can be said about the lack of diversity and inclusion, particularly at board level, as well as a sense of white savourism that underlies a lot of Street Child's work.