BY ANDREW DUBOCK Vulnerable children living in the 3,000-metre-high, mining city of Oruro are receiving more care and support from local Christians, thanks to the support of Viva’s partner network. Light of the World Church in Oruro, central Bolivia, has been active in the city for about 40 years, growing slowly in membership. However […]
Category: Latin America
Support after tragedy
Gifts to the Guatemala Appeal – launched in March following a fire at a large children’s care home in the country – are helping our partner network to respond effectively and strategically. Forty-one teenage girls died and 15 others were seriously injured after the tragedy at the Virgen de la Asuncion home on the […]
Heartbreak and hope
BY LIZ CROSS Four children were playing on the streets of Guatemala City when they were approached by a man who offered them food to coax them into his house. Three of the children regularly attended workshops run by Viva’s partner network, Viva Guatemala, and knew not to trust the man. But the other boy, […]
Finding life in the cemetery
Liz Cross, Viva’s Supporter Care Co-ordinator, writes about her recent trip to visit Viva’s partner network in Guatemala City and about finding positive stories in difficult places. A cemetery is one of the last places I expected to be standing when visiting Viva’s partner network in Guatemala City. However, over 2,000 people live on the […]
Over 4,000 children attended a Viva Christmas Party
BY ANNA COX Thirteen networks around the world hosted 27 Christmas Parties in December with support from Viva. The events brought children of different backgrounds, churches and organisations together for a day to celebrate God’s love and care where they were able to hear the Christmas story and learn valuable lessons to improve their understanding […]
Dotting I’s and crossing T’s
BY LIZ CROSS Imagine walking eight hours to register your child’s birth. You arrive at the government centre and it’s crowded with people. They are all waiting to do the same as you – there’s only one registration centre to serve 200,000 people. The queue is long. You hear stories of how the internet connection […]
Supporting care-leavers in Honduras
BY ANNA COX At Viva, we believe that every child should grow up with a loving, caring and supportive family, yet sadly this is too often not the case. Adoption provides the opportunity for children who – through death, addiction, emotional, psychological or economic reasons – do not have a family that can care for […]
Revisiting the Christmas Match Appeal 2015: Make home a safer place for children
Thank you so much to all who gave to our Match Appeal last Christmas! Ten months on, we wanted to share one way in which Viva has been tackling the issue of domestic violence and abuse in Central America.
A link in the chain for disability in Costa Rica
For the first time, the Costa Rican government has funded its children’s department to set up a project specifically focusing on helping children with disabilities, supported by Viva’s partner network in San José. Brenda Darke, a regional consultant for Viva on the issue of disability, outlines the situation in the country, the encouragements from the […]
Absent fathers: the pain of separation
One morning I got into a taxi: I was in a hurry as usual! After an exchange of greetings and asking me where I wanted to go, the taxi driver, who had given my lifts on a number of previous occasions asked: “Forgive my curiosity, but aren’t you a professor?”