Julie Chéhadé founded and incorporated Voices of the Street Inc. in 2021, but the idea was born many years earlier.

In her late teens, Julie became deeply drawn to meditation and monastic life. During the summer of 2007, she travelled to Nepal to study Tibetan Buddhism with the monks of Rangjung Yeshe Monastery in Kathmandu. At the time, she was seriously considering withdrawing from society to pursue a contemplative monastic life.

Life had other plans.

Each day, while walking between her residence and the monastery, Julie met children living on the streets of Kathmandu. She quickly became friends with them. Rather than giving them cash, she invited them to share meals at small local cafés and food stalls, bought them toothbrushes to teach basic hygiene, played soccer with them, and learned to communicate alongside them in Nepali. In return, the children introduced her to the realities of their daily lives, even showing her where and how to find discarded cardboard boxes to sleep on at night.

When it came time to leave Nepal, saying goodbye was heartbreaking. The experience profoundly changed Julie's perspective and left a lasting imprint on the course of her life.

For several years afterward, monastic life continued to appeal to her. Over time, however, Julie realized that rather than withdrawing from society, she wanted to remain actively engaged in it.

Whether in China, Iran, Malaysia, Egypt, India, or Pakistan, she was welcomed by local families and communities. In return for their generosity, she became involved in educating children, just as others had invested in her own upbringing. Teaching gradually became the common thread running through her life—sometimes as a profession, and sometimes as a way of giving back to those who had opened their homes and hearts to her.

Throughout her travels, Julie contributed financially to the education, health, and well-being of children, young people, and their families. She also supported initiatives dedicated to the welfare of stray animals, particularly street dogs, motivated by both compassion for vulnerable living beings and concern for public health.

In 2021, it became a natural step to incorporate a nonprofit organization in order to better organize these efforts, develop new initiatives, and invite others to join the journey.

Although Julie's encounters with the street children of Kathmandu inspired the organization's name, Voices of the Street has come to represent something much broader. Streets belong to everyone, regardless of their background, social status, or financial means. They symbolize the shared spaces that connect our communities. The word Voices reflects the belief that every living being deserves to be heard, recognized, and supported in reaching their full potential.

It is from the meeting of education, solidarity, culture, public health, compassion, and human dignity that the mission of Voices of the Street Inc. was born.