SpaceX Donates 750 Starlink Kits to Help Children Find Families

SpaceX has donated 750 Starlink kits to help children’s homes across 16 countries get online, supporting efforts to reunite children with their families.

The donation is going through Both Ends Believing (BEB), a U.S.-based nonprofit that gives governments free software to manage children’s records and plan their move from institutional care into safe, permanent families. BEB confirmed the grant in its November press materials, released under an embargo that lifted on November 11.

The 750 kits cover the entire programme, spanning nine African countries and seven in Latin America. BEB says it will distribute the equipment to childcare institutions; it has not said all 750 locations are already connected.

In Africa, the countries are Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In Latin America, they are Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay and Peru.

The project expands on Starlink’s use in education and humanitarian work, including the UAE’s partnership to connect remote learning sites. Here, the immediate goal is giving staff a reliable way to access and update case files.

BEB’s Children First software replaces scattered paper files with a secure record covering a child’s identity, family connections, education and care history. Authorized officials can use it to trace relatives, review cases and coordinate care. Governments own and control their records, including who can access them, according to BEB.

“But the software only works if homes can get online,” said Sandra Chikan, vice president for Northern Nigeria at the Association of Orphanages and Homes Operators in Nigeria, in BEB’s press materials.

As of November, BEB says Children First is used in 22 countries, with 76,714 child profiles and 1,141 childcare institutions recorded. Those figures describe its wider software programme, not the number of children or institutions covered by this Starlink donation.

The organization has already documented what connectivity can change: in August 2025, its Zambia team described installing Starlink at a rural institution where a lack of Wi-Fi had prevented staff from implementing Children First. The new grant is intended to bring that kind of access to more homes.

Starlink uses satellites in low Earth orbit to deliver broadband in places where fixed-line connections can be difficult to obtain. Readers can check Starlink availability through our referral link.