SpaceX will provide 750 Starlink satellite internet systems to childcare institutions across 16 countries worldwide, including nine African countries, under a grant to US-based non-profit Both Ends Believing (BEB).
The initiative aims to improve internet connectivity in residential childcare facilities and support efforts to move children from institutional care into permanent family placements.
The grant, estimated to be worth nearly $1 million, will provide participating facilities with reliable broadband internet, many of them for the first time. The initiative also marks a new focus for SpaceX’s Starlink philanthropic programme, which has historically concentrated on connecting schools, hospitals and communities in underserved regions.
An estimated 5.4 million children worldwide live in institutions. Across Africa, governments are working towards making institutional care a temporary measure of last resort. However, many still lack reliable data on the number of children living in these facilities, the circumstances that brought them there and the pathways available to reunite them with their families or secure alternative family-based care.
The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), in its 2023 Continental Study on Children Without Parental Care in Africa, estimated that approximately 35 million African children are without parental care. The study also found that more than 70% of African countries lack explicit, comprehensive policy frameworks to protect these children and called for their inclusion in national data systems.
African governments have also taken steps to strengthen child protection systems. Last year, the ACERWC adopted General Comment No. 10 on Article 25 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The guidance states that institutional care should only be used as a temporary measure of last resort. It also requires governments to register and monitor all institutions caring for children and maintain up-to-date records.
BEB will distribute the Starlink systems through its local teams and government partnerships in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The connectivity will support the deployment of Children First Software (CFS), BEB’s child welfare platform, which enables governments and childcare providers to register children, digitise records and improve case management. The platform is also designed to accelerate efforts to reunite children with their biological families or place them in permanent family care.
SpaceX will provide the participating institutions with Starlink hardware, shipping, installation support and 12 months of high-speed internet service at no cost. After the initial service period, the facilities will be eligible to continue receiving the service at a significantly subsidised rate.
Both Ends Believing currently operates in more than 20 countries. The organisation has supported governments and childcare providers in digitising records for tens of thousands of children and has helped advance efforts that have already moved thousands of children from institutional care into families.
