The founders saved enough capital to move to the Philippines in May 1990 to begin the construction of the center.

We invited our first collaborating partner, Kaibigan Foundation, to bring their children for a camp. This camp became the beginning of a whole line of workshops, seminars and camps for hundreds of children over the next couple of years. Stairway became a resort for children and staff from our partners in Manila, where they could pick up inspiration and motivation for further development. With the abundant exposure to nature and a wide range of visual and performance arts activities, we had found our niche in the network of organizations working for street children.

We further developed the creative camps and workshops and approximately 400 children benefit from the program. We expanded our network to another 5 Manila based street children agencies, and we established Stairway Foundation Inc. in collaboration with the chairman, Atty. Johannes Ignacio.

Also this year, we founded our Danish sister organization, Stairway Denmark, and we formulated and submitted our first proposal to an international funding agency, namely the Danish International Development Assistance, DANIDA.

We had our first advocacy presentation at Roedkilde Gymnasium in Denmark, which led to a long and still ongoing partnership between the school and Stairway.

SFI instituted a formal partnership with the Bagiuo Arts Guild, from where we recruited young artists as facilitators for some of the many creative workshops we held. We also initiated a close partnership with a Manila based drop-in center, Tanglaw Ng Kabataan, TNK, and started to operate as a rupture center for particularly disadvantaged street children, who needed to be distanced from a life threatening street environment.

In the middle of this year we received the first external funding for the programs from DANIDA. Prior to DANIDA's support the program had been solely financed by the founders. In that same year, SFI responded to a local natural disaster, when a strong earthquake hit Mindoro and killed about a hundred people and left tens of thousands homeless. Our focus was on play and art related therapeutic intervention for the many children survivors in the evacuation centers.

For the benefit of the earthquake victims, SFI organized a major fund raising concert in Manila with participation of some of the best musicians and artists in the country. To respond to the high prevalence of disease in some of the victims' relocation sites, the overhead was invested in materials for building toilets and septic tanks for 67 families.

The program continued with creative workshops and camps for hundreds of children from Manila, and the rupture center was running with a population around 8-10 children at the time. The activities were low during this year due to the absence of the program coordinator and the director, who spent most of the year in Denmark as a result of a serious illness.

SFI received license and accreditation from the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

The script and the lyrics to the songs in "Goldtooth, A Street Children's Musical" were written, and 17 more or less hard core children/youth from the streets were recruited as the cast. The initial phase of the project was merely drama therapy, and as the children and the quality developed, the idea of TASK, Talented Ambitious Street Kids, was conceptualized.

Over the next year and a half the musical grew into a remarkable piece of creative advocacy.

SFI now held a population of around 20-25 children and the drama therapy, as an integrated part of the development of the musical, is ongoing. SFI hosted a television crew from the Danish National Television for 2 months, and the program was featured in a film broadcast nationwide, called "Drengen der ikke ville vaskes". The director of the film, Katrine Nyholm, became a staunch supporter of Stairway and is presently the chairperson of Stairway Denmark.

"Goldtooth, A Street Children's Musical" had 2 preview performances in a theatre in Manila, and with an overwhelming response from both audiences, the pillars were laid for planning a local as well as and international tour for the musical.

With the musical "Goldtooth" as the main element, SFI launched an international advocacy campaign promoting children's rights. The  TASK group consisting of 17 former street children, performed for more than 20.000 people in 5 different countries. One of these performances was at the UN headquarter in Geneva, Switzerland, in the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Through a very authentic performance, TASK clearly illustrated the worlds that still lie in between the words and promises of the convention and the reality of millions of children around the world.

Everybody experienced "a hard landing" after the "Goldtooth" tour. Almost the entire  TASK group was passed on to jobs or further education. We constructed a new building with dormitory and school rooms. We opened  SFI non-formal education school, and received recognition from the Department of Education.

We had the first group of students from the International School coming to Stairway for a week of exposure and education on street children and children's rights.

22 endangered street children were admitted into SFI for therapy and non-formal education.

The writing of the 11 short stories compiled in "Black Angels, Street Children Realities" was completed. Testing of the stories' in classrooms in Denmark, Canada and Egypt. Developing the  teachers' manual.

The non-formal education classes at SFI were ongoing. More workshops and seminars were held on issues relevant for the survival and growth of street children. SFI was a founding member of a local network for the prevention of child sexual abuse.

Based on one of the stories from "Black Angels, Street Children Realities", we developed the storyboard to the  animation "Daughter", which was to be a main tool in a campaign against child sexual abuse. The story was tested on a large group of children and further by our partners from the Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse.

The animator behind the creation of the characters in "Daughter" was Paw Ravn, who generously volunteered his time and talents at Stairway for 4 months.

After seven years of financial support from DANIDA, we diversified our financial dependency and signed new partnership contracts with 2 new international funding agencies; Kindernothilfe from Germany and Leger Foundation from Canada. Further, the Embassy of Finland in Manila agreed to support the campaign against child sexual abuse.

Based on more than a decade of experiences we decided to take an active part in the fight against child sexual abuse and commercial sexual exploitation of children here in the Philippines and globally. In 2003 we completed and released the 'Daughter, a Story of Incest' animation toolkit.

At the same time we facilitated a series of 14 children's rights/child sexual abuse prevention workshops for a total of 225 children and youth. Some of the workshops were facilitated for children in detention and revealed an urgent need to address the problem of sexual abuse in penitentiary institutions for children.

At the residential program we served a new group of 14 children. Eight of them we got out of jail and six were street children with tuberculosis. All the children with TB underwent medical therapy: the Directly Observed Treatment Short Course, DOTS, recommended by the WHO and have now recovered.

The animation Daughter, a Story of Incest proved its worth during its first year of existence. It was distributed and used widely in the Philippines, and it was translated into Khmer and Bahasa to be used in Cambodia and Indonesia as well. The film also brought attention to the problem of child sexual abuse in other parts of the world, as it won a first prize at the world’s largest animation film festival in Annecy, France, where it also received a special award from UNICEF.

Stairway’s local campaign against child sexual abuse was further intensified with an expansion of the organization’s network and a long line of trainings and workshops for teachers, social workers, church members and other caregivers. With more activity on the prevention side grew the need for more resources placed into the restoration of survivors of sexual abuse. Towards the end of the year, DANIDA gave promise to support Stairway’s work on child sexual abuse prevention for the next two years.

In Stairway’s residential program, a total of 29 children and 7 youth were given assistance. For more information please go to Annual Report 2004.

The animation A Good Boy, A Story of Pedophilia was launched in the last quarter of this year. Both A Good Boy and Daughter were dubbed into Filipino, English, Spanish and French, all through volunteer efforts stemming from Stairway’s network with the International School in Manila and the European International School. The A Good Boy cartoon book was also produced in both English and Filipino.

Stairway’s theater piece, Cracked Mirrors, was also shown for the first time during the official premier of the animation A Good Boy. Cracked Mirrors has earned overwhelming acclaim and has then taken a key position in Stairway’s advocacy efforts. A total of 83 CSAP trainings and workshops were given this year for children, youth, and adults. These were participated by 12,182 children and youth and 3,312 adults resulting to 15,494 participants.

To reach a high-risk audience and to further amplify the awareness campaign against child sexual abuse, Stairway in partnership with Childhope Asia Philippines also launched an advocacy project dubbed Animation on Wheels. Stairway’s animations Daughter and A Good Boy were incorporated in Childhope Asia’s Mobile Education Van to reach out to more vulnerable children. In its four-month run, 15 showings were held, reaching out to 203 children and 117 adults.

For this year, a total of 26 children were given assistance in the residential program, six of which were cured of their tuberculosis. For more information, please refer to Annual Report 2005.

A Good Boy was entered to Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival (SICAF) and had won the Jury’s Special Award. It was also entered and won an award of recognition an International Film Festival for Human Rights Film at Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It was also at this time that development and pre-production of a third animation called Red Leaves began. It will be about child sex trafficking and would complement the first two animations on incest and pedophilia. UNICEF Philippines has committed to help Stairway package and distribute the 3 animations as a whole and their respective manuals once Red Leaves is out.

The Break the Silence campaign was also started. It was essentially an advocacy for children’s rights and the prevention of child sexual abuse using Stairway’s advocacy materials: theater play presentation of Cracked Mirrors, and an animation showing of Daughter and A Good Boy. For this year, a total of 36 Cracked Mirrors performances were held, reaching almost 3,000 people, mainly students and children from different NGOs.

The Animation on Wheels project continued and a mini-study on the impact of the animation on the concept and attitude of the street children towards CSA was conducted. Results indicated that there had been a significant change in the children’s perception about child sexual abuse. The animations were proven to have relevant impact to them since they still remember the entire story two weeks after viewing.

A total of 24 children were served in the residential program, three of which were cured of their tuberculosis. For more information, please refer to Annual Report 2006.

The Break the Silence campaign continued up to the 1st quarter of 2007 with most performances done in different institutions like the academe and law enforcement agencies. Cracked Mirrors was also presented in Bangkok, Thailand on three occasions; at the Bangkok New International School, at the International Law Enforcement Academy conference, and at the VIVA Network Cutting Edge Conference in November. The 300-plus Asian Christian leaders in the last event found Cracked Mirrors to be a very powerful performance.

Aside from teachers, social workers, religious groups, NGO partners, which include the KNH network, Stairway has also expanded collaboration with two other most significant partners, namely the academe and the law enforcement. For this year, Stairway managed to train a considerable number of people, far exceeding the projected target number. Almost 6,000 people were given trainings or exposed to Stairway’s advocacy materials.

Daughter and A Good Boy have also been translated into Cebuano, a major language of the Philippines, while production of Red Leaves continued.

Stairway’s research study on the effects of the two animations on the children who watch them was completed this year. Shown to elementary and high school students, findings showed that of all the learnings that the children had gotten from the films, taking action when a potentially abusive situation occurs is the most common. This has validated Stairway’s efforts to strengthen the capacities of adults to be aware of and understand the issue.

New constructions were also completed this year. A two-storey building became the new Strairway office and kitchen, with the roof deck serving as a Function Hall for trainings, meetings, and social gatherings. A two-storey Training and Accommodation Facility with six rooms and a function hall (called the Yellow House) has also been constructed. With these infrastructure developments, Stairway’s physical capacity as an organization has greatly increased.

A total of 24 children were again served in the residential program, six with tuberculosis. For more information, please refer to Annual Report 2007.