In this article, we examine the social networks that enable working children on the streets of Addis Ababa to cope and exercise agency under adverse circumstances. Based on qualitative interviews with 45 children, we explore how they take part in new and existing social networks. We analyse the work of social networks and explain how they help the individual child to attain physical and economic security, secure living quarters, food supply, and formal and informal schooling. Finally, we discuss to what extent the networks can be considered as social capital for the children.

This paper is part of a series of working papers produced by UNICEF's Office of Research-Innocenti in collaboration with the University of Oxford's Young Lives research programme. Under its multi-country study on The Drivers of Violence Affecting Children, the Office of Research has undertaken research in Italy, Peru, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe which examines how structural, institutional, community and individual factors interact to affect violence in children's lives, with a particular focus on the risks and experiences of violence by gender and age. Complementing UNICEF's multi-country study, a number of papers have been produced using the longitudinal quantitative and qualitative data produced by the Young Lives research initiative. Young Lives is an international study of childhood poverty, initiated in 2000, which has followed 12,000 children in Ethiopia, India (in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Peru and Viet Nam. This set of papers aims to understand various aspects of children's experiences of violence, and the impacts of violence on children's lives over time, across different settings. Two papers use the quantitative data from the four Young Lives study sites to examine the issues of corporal punishment and bullying, their prevalence, impacts on children and the social support available to them.

Based on interviews with 45 children, this article looks at the life situations and aspirations of working children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, including their hopes, efforts and struggles to make their dreams come true. Pushed by the need for survival, the children work and nearly half go to school. They demonstrate agency, taking care of themselves, supporting families and aspiring to change their lives. However, they also face challenges that make achieving their aspirations difficult. The authors argue that agency alone is not sufficient to help them realise their aspirations unless buffered by supportive structures and systems.

The study explores the life situation of children who come from rural areas to work in Addis Ababa. It discusses their migration, work, relationships, and their economic contributions using data from 30 children. Findings indicate that poverty is a major push factor for migration, while a strong network of relatives living in Addis Ababa is a pull factor. In Addis Ababa, the children live in a challenging environment, drawing on their personal and social resources to persevere in the face of difficulties. Though they work hard and sometimes manage without basic necessities, they appreciate the opportunities available to help families, and for most to go to school, which reflects agency in action. Interventions need to consider not only vulnerability, but also the agency and resilience of children and the factors behind these.

Literature on girls' education in developing countries mostly focuses on identifying and describing constraints girls encounter in terms of accessing and succeeding in education, and it is thus problem oriented. What is lacking is the other half of the picture, that is, stories and coping strategies of successful female students. With this in mind, the current study attempted to describe some problems of girls' education, but gave emphasis to the personal and social resources girls access and utilize in order to succeed. Qualitative data analysis based on Reinharz's feminist ethnography was used. Some of the constraints identified include; poverty, school distance and cultural practices, such as early marriage and marriage by abduction. Regarding coping, though there are several facilitating factors such as support from parents and teachers, and models/mentors, many of the girls in the study indicated that in the final analysis, the student herself would take responsibility for her success or failure. Her aspiration and faith determines how much work she puts into her education. The more a girl aspires the harder she works, and the more chance she will have to succeed. Hard work when combined with success earns the girls recognition and support both from families and school. These factors, i.e., hard work, success, recognition and support the girls get from others feed into each other increasing the likelihood of girls succeeding in their education. As the findings show there are a lot of constraints that discourage the girls from attending their classes properly and succeeding in their education. However, many of the respondents resisted the pressures from different directions in various ways including; fighting back, ignoring or manipulating. As Reyes put it, "Their lives, however, were empowered through the will not to give up just because things do get a little hard," (1996, 24).