“What’s in a name?”

The immortalised words from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet asks a question at a time when having the wrong name was a matter of life or death. Names are important – especially the giving and receiving of names as children are born. My daughter, Megan, was excited recently to realise that the name of her new carpet (Pearl) was connected to her name. Megan is a Welsh diminutive form of Margaret, which means ‘little pearl’ – and also ‘strong’. The name and its meaning meant something to her and strengthened her identity – even the simple connection to a carpet.

In a similar way if we take someone’s name away we also have the power to take their identity away – making them smaller, weaker – reducing the image of God in them. Children are powerless to name themselves at birth, powerless to decide whether they get registered for a birth certificate, powerless to control the environment in which they live and grow up. The following poem was written by an ex-street child who knows full well what it feels like to be stripped of one name and given several others…

They call me Street Child.
It means “anonymous”. That’s not my name.
My name is Adeline. It means “beloved”.

They call me Urchin. That’s not my name.
My name is Ilario. It means “cheerful”.

They call me Spinning Top. That’s not my name.
My name is Cara. It means “precious jewel”.

They call me Dust of Life. That’s not my name.
My name is Mateo. It means “gift of God”.

They call me Street Child.
It means “anonymous”. That’s not my name

Wherever we live and whatever contact we have with children today, may we know that they are chosen and loved by a God who “calls them by name” – let us do the same.

Many girls hold ‘sweet 16′ birthday parties to mark their coming of age with friends and family. On Saturday, 28 April Viva had its own ‘sweet 16′ to look back at its years of growth, and also to look forward to the big changes that will come with Patrick McDonald’s departure and Andy Dipper’s appointment as CEO.

270 people gathered in St Aldate’s Church for an afternoon of tea, scones and Viva memories. Families from many parts of the UK came to celebrate 16 years of Viva’s work, particularly recognising the contribution of Viva’s founders Patrick and Emily McDonald.

A few speakers gave an overview of Viva’s history, from its beginnings in a telephone booth to its international presence now, reaching 104,000 children at risk in 12 countries. Others gave tributes to Patrick and Emily’s inspiring passion and vision, reflected in lives dedicated to loving and caring for all of God’s children.

Meanwhile kids who joined the celebration had a great time playing games, colouring and having fun with balloons. They even got to have their faces painted with flags of countries from around the world to show all the places where Viva works!

As the children filed back into the room, Patrick gave a few words of appreciation and encouragement for the future: “I wanted to say ‘thank you’ because we have, between us, found a shared calling in helping children at risk…and even though there is change, this shared calling continues, and that obedience continues, because the need remains.”

After praying for the McDonald family, we also spent some time getting to know Viva’s new CEO, Andy Dipper:

The event drew to a close with a prayer, but many stayed to have conversations with Patrick, Emily, Andy and other staff. Looking around the room and hearing the murmur of warm chatter, we knew that Viva indeed had a very ‘sweet’ celebration.

Friends and staff gave touching tributes to Patrick and Emily.

Children had their faces painted with the flags of countries where Viva works

Girls just wanna have fun!

The McDonald family

Nick Bamber interviews Andy Dipper

Conversations went on for a while after the event!

*All photos by John Cairns Photography

Think about the times you have felt hungry. To make the hunger go away, you’d probably reach for the nearest biscuit or wait shortly for the next meal. Now imagine feeling hungry for days, even weeks, with no certainty of when you’ll have another bite to eat—on a regular basis.

Those living in the Sahel region of Africa are used to droughts and having to go hungry for a few weeks to ration their food before the September harvest. But this year, the drought has arrived earlier than usual, leaving over 10 million people facing food insecurity. Some villages have already run out of food, and over one million children are now at risk of being severely malnourished if nothing is done, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.

Constantly hearing or reading about these crises, with one drought following another and another, might be discouraging, especially in these times when financial gifts are more than some of us can afford. But looking throughout the Bible, there is a clear message from God to respond to the cries of the needy:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” Isaiah 58:6-7

In Darkhadra, a Mauritanian village, Youma Mintmohamed told allAfrica: “Our children are sick of need,” a short statement that reveals the heavy uncertainty among millions who are struggling to barely meet the basic day-to-day needs of children. It is also a cry for help.

So we invite you to rise up and respond with us in prayer. Please pray…

- For the children at risk of malnutrition. Pray that enough aid will arrive quickly so deaths and more severe cases can be prevented.

- For the over 10 million who are going hungry. Whatever it takes, may their crops be able to revive and yield enough food to feed the villages, and may aid also be sent quickly before it’s too late.

- For quick international response. Pray that the nations with the resources to help will be moved to send aid to the Sahel region quickly. May all the resources be sent to the right places and be used in the right way.

- For the region’s climate and harvests. Pray for rain so that crops can grow, and may this next harvest yield more food for families to store during future droughts.

Click here to see an interactive map of what’s happening in the Sahel region.

A trip to Thailand sounds pretty idyllic. You could walk on gorgeous white beaches, swim in the glittering blue sea, climb the lush green mountains, or visit beautiful ancient temples. Or you could be forced to work in a brothel every night for two years.

15-year-old Leli had heard many stories about Thailand. Growing up in a poor village in Cambodia, many families she knew had brothers or fathers who had left to find work there, and she had always viewed it as a place of prosperity and happiness. Certainly it seemed a better place to be than her village, where work was scarce and poverty was widespread. Leli’s own family were desperately struggling for money: her mother had borrowed from a money lender to buy rice grain but the rice harvest was meagre, and by the time they had paid back the debt they had barely enough to feed the family. Thailand was looking more and more appealing to Leli by the day.

Then she discovered that a woman from the next village along was heading for Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, before making the journey to Thailand, and she offered to look after Leli and help her get across the border to find work. Leli’s mother was reluctant to part with her, but the family were so desperate for money that in the end she agreed to let Leli go. Yet when Leli arrived in Phnom Penh, things took a slightly different turn…“When I got to the city I stayed in this lady’s house for one week,” Leli remembers, “then she asked me to follow a man who she knows by telling me that he will find a good job for me. I trusted, and I went with him. But the real thing was that they had a plan to sell me.”

When Leli arrived in Thailand with this man she was taken to a ‘hotel’ in Bangkok. Surrounded by strange and menacing men, she watched in horror as the man she had travelled with exchanged her freedom for $100. He then walked out of the hotel without a backward glance. Leli tenses up as she recalls the weeks and months that followed: “These men they had a brothel in the hotel. The owner – he forced me to sleep with many guests. I cannot say how many, it is something I hide away in my mind now, not to think of.”

Shocked by what had happened, completely alone in an unfamiliar city and without any money of her own, Leli did not know how to escape the clutches of the brothel-owner. Until one day she had a chance encounter which would turn out to be the key to her rescue. “One day, I met a Khmer [native Cambodian] fisherman who is living in Thailand. He recognised me as a Cambodian and asked me ‘how did you come here and why are you sex working here’ and I said to him I was deceived. He was so kind and he wanted to help. He found someone who would be able to take me back to Cambodia!”

Leli relaxes slightly as she continues her story: “When I arrived in Phnom Penh I went straight to the church he had told to me. He said they would know somewhere safe for me.” The church that the fisherman had directed her to was a part of the city-wide network in Phnom Penh. After hearing Leli’s story they immediately called the network, and within a few hours they had arranged for Leli to stay at the Mother’s Heart shelter. “This is just a beautiful place for me. I have food and I am looked at by a doctor, and people have been speaking to me about what happened at the hotel and I can cry and share about it now. I am so relieved. For now this is a good place for me, as I am not wanting to go back to my family yet, I am not ready after all that has happened.”

The network is able to help girls like Leli in this way because of Viva’s StandOut campaign. Our supporters willingness to StandOut against sexual exploitation and abuse means that Leli can now say: “I give thanks to God for blessing me and providing a safe shelter for me. The bad things that happened before I know cannot happen again. This is my safe place now.”

TO GIVE £3 TO STANDOUT AGAINST CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND ABUSE, TEXT ‘STAND’ TO 70777

SUPPORT STANDOUT TO PROTECT AND RESCUE CHILDREN LIKE LILA

READ MORE STANDOUT STORIES

If you have an older brother, then you know the kind of things they get up to – they tease you, they steal your share of dessert, they try and trick you into doing their chores. It’s a bit annoying, but it’s just what older brothers do. But Radhika’s brother treated her in a way that no one could excuse or shrug off: he tried to rape her.

From a poor family in Hyderabad, India, 11-year-old Radhika had grown up without seeing much of her parents. Always out trying to pick up odd jobs to make sure the family had enough to eat, they mostly left Radhika in the care of her older brother. She was also able to spend a few hours a week at a project in Viva’s city-wide network in Hyderabad. She had been put in touch with them through her local church, and they had arranged for her to have a meal and help with her school work on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

“Radhika was the most quiet girl,” project staff member Kuri shared with us. “She didn’t make eye contact and didn’t want to talk with us about her home. This worried us. So we decided she would start some sessions with one of our counsellors.” The counsellors at this project had recently taken part in some training organised by the network on how to use the ‘Picture me’ counselling tool, which is specially developed to help children express and share what they have experienced using pictures and art.

After several quiet sessions in which she was quite reluctant to talk, Radhika suddenly opened up to her counsellor, sharing that her brother had tried to force her to have sex with him. She had managed to escape him, but she now felt very scared at home and frightened of being in her house with him. Kuri says: “When the counsellor asked why she did not shout or tell about this to anyone before now she replied, ‘He is my elder. How can I talk against him? Who would believe me instead of him?’ From childhood she was taught not to speak against adults as they are always right.”

Over the course of several weeks the counsellor was able to talk with Radhika about how special she is to Jesus, and let her know that God does not want this kind of injustice to happen to her. “They could tell her that just because someone is older doesn’t mean that they are always right,” Kuri reports, “and that what happened to her was not ok, and she was right to share it now. Radhika needed to know that because of God’s love for her he will help her not to feel scared anymore.” The project is also trying to establish a relationship with Radhika’s parents, to talk with her about how to keep Radhika safe in the family home.

It’s been possible for Radhika to be counselled, cared for and kept safe because of Viva’s StandOut campaign which helps to fund the work of our networks in Asia. Thanks to our supporters willingness to StandOut against sexual exploitation and abuse, Kuri was able to report this amazing end to Radhika’s story: “This process has helped raise the self-image of Radhika and has given voice to this voiceless child of God who can now experience freedom within her soul. She now feels empowered to stand up for herself and speak her opinions. She said to us ‘I know now how to keep myself safe from such people and I also look out to protect other girls like me from bad elders.’”

TO GIVE £3 TO STANDOUT AGAINST CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION AND ABUSE, TEXT ‘STAND’ TO 70777

SUPPORT THE STANDOUT TO HELP PROVIDE SUPPORT TO CHILDREN LIKE RADHIKA WHO HAVE SUFFERED SEXUAL ABUSE

READ MORE STANDOUT STORIES

Many kids fight with their parents about going to school. “I don’t feel well” “I don’t like my teacher” or “I don’t want to learn maths”. But for 14-year-old Jacob Kiyaki, it was his father who made excuses to keep him at home.

Jacob and his father live in a poor community just outside of Kampala, Uganda. His father owns a small banana plantation in the village, and for several years they had been struggling to make ends meet, helpless to control their income as the price of their fruit changed constantly with the global economic turmoil. Eventually Jacob’s father decided that the best way to ensure they could bring in more money was for Jacob to stop going to school, and instead come to work with him on the plantation.

But Jacob was desperate to continue his education, and he fought with his father about his decision. When his father grew angry at Jacob’s refusal to leave school and work on the planation, Jacob decided to run away to his uncle’s house in the city. Exactly what happened to him on the way is still unknown, but by the time he was found by Julius Tuhairwe, a project worker from Viva’s Kampala network who had just completed the Viva Equip People course, he was not in a good state.

“I found him sitting on a chair outside a shop. He had glazed, red eyes and open wounds on his head. I approached him and asked him what had happened, and he gave me his story. I saw he needed treatment immediately so I took him to the nearest clinic.” After Jacob had been seen by a doctor, Julius phoned the police department closest to Jacob’s village to try and locate his father. Julius convinced him to come to the city to see his son and talk with them both about the situation.

“His father could not understand why Jacob was ‘misbehaving’ and not wanting to work on the plantation. So I explained to him that he needed to listen to Jacob and, most of all, give him enough space and time to say everything he wanted to say.” Julius facilitated a long discussion between the father and son, making sure that Jacob was given that space to talk to his father about why school was so important to him and how his father’s words and actions made him feel. His father began to see that listening to his son was a vital part of building a relationship with him.

Julius told us that he could never have had this talk with Jacob’s father if it had not been for Viva Equip People. He said that, before, he might have had a sense that Jacob’s father was not treating his son well, but he wouldn’t have been able to help him change his behaviour, and he wouldn’t have had the confidence to speak so strongly to him and to insist that Jacob’s father treat him differently.

Jacob’s father has agreed that he doesn’t have to work but can instead keep going to school, and their relationship seems to be getting better all the time. Julius has been meeting up with them both regularly to check they are communicating well, and he reports that both Jacob and his father are much happier.

And Jacob and his father are not the only ones to notice the effects of the Viva Equip People training. The leader of Julius’ organisation was the one who told us this story, and he finished by saying: “Our team have developed a much greater sense of vocation and, I believe, a much deeper love and appreciation for the children in their care. I can’t thank Viva enough for the difference you have made!”

READ MORE ABOUT VIVA EQUIP PROGRAMMES

If a young child is loud, demanding and can’t sit still for longer than 30 seconds, what should we do with them? If they’re in a country like Saudi Arabia then maybe they would be harshly disciplined, and forced to behave. If they’re in the UK or USA maybe they would just be labelled ‘ADHD’ and given medication to calm them down. If they’re in Nepal, they will most likely be kept out of sight, ending up feeling ignored and unwanted, which is just what happened to six-year-old Bipana.

When Bipana first came into contact with the Nepal network, she was “never quiet, always yelling out and always running around,” says Sharmila Atal, a caregiver at the project where Bipana is being looked after. “She had so much energy, too much! She didn’t want to answer questions, so we couldn’t discover all the history. We are a shelter for girls who have been abandoned or mistreated, lots of the girls are very fragile and quiet. Bipana was always a trouble to us, always disrupting.”

Sharmila was very honest about the way she and the other project staff initially responded to Bipana: “A traditional way of viewing children in Nepalese culture is that they should be quiet, especially in front of elders, and we felt the behaviour of Bipana was not acceptable. So we were forever trying to make her be quiet, and sending her to her room so things would be easy for the other girls.” But when Sharmila and two of her colleagues took part in the Viva Equip People training, they discovered some very counter-cultural ideas that made them completely re-think how they worked with Bipana.

“As we looked at the ‘Listening to children’ and ‘Understanding the child in context’ modules we just saw and heard things that were so new to us. They taught us how what a child has been through will affect their behaviour, and that it is so important to take time to understand them and help them change slowly, not just to punish them.” Sharmila was also particularly struck by the session on listening to children, and says that her work has been transformed by the idea that “you should let children express their opinions and ideas, so they can help you find out how to help them. They have so much to offer, it is not adults who know everything.”

As Sharmila and the other project staff began to change the way they dealt with Bipana, they saw her behaviour begin to change too. As they stopped punishing her and trying to force her to change, and instead started helping her express her feelings and frustrations in more healthy ways, a completely new side of Bipana emerged.

“She is using her energy and her voice now in a good way. She is always the first to jump out of bed and go to breakfast, and she is shouting ‘Come on girls, hurry up, we must be in time for prayers together!’” Bipana has also put her energy to work in the classroom, soaking up her school lessons at an amazing pace – she only began Grade 1 a few months ago, and already her teacher has moved her up to the Grade 2 class.

Because of Viva Equip People, Bipana has been able to move from feeling ignored and unwanted to being someone Sharmila is delighted to work with: “Here we are not just looking after children, but we are looking after the adults of tomorrow – we are affecting what these children will become in the future. And, thanks to Viva Equip, now Bipana has a future of being such an amazing, passionate and lovely girl. She will be a great woman to have in the world I am sure.”

READ MORE ABOUT VIVA EQUIP PROGRAMMES

When Ashram first came into contact with Viva’s Delhi network, he had less than 30 Rupees (50p) in his pocket. Now he is helping to manage the finances of an entire organisation. But how did a boy with very little education and no work experience make that jump?

Ashram was 11 years old when he was found wandering the streets of Delhi, with almost no money, no food and no family to support him. He was brought to the Delhi House Society, a member of one of Viva’s networks in India, which works with some of the poorest children and adults in the capital. They gave Ashram a place to stay, arranged regular medical check-ups and helped him get a place at a nearby school part-time. He grew into a much healthier and happier boy than he had been for years. But a few months ago, when he turned 16, he began to feel very uncertain about the future, wondering what he would do when it came time to leave the project and start working.

Around the same time, several staff from the Delhi House Society started the Viva Equip Projects training given through the city-wide network. They were enthusiastic about the whole programme, but particularly interested in how to better manage their finances, which had long been a problem area for them. So when they had completed the Financial Accountability module they were very keen to share their learning with their colleagues. But when they sat down to report back on what they had discovered they found they had an unexpected listener – Ashram.

At first he just sat quietly in the doorway, curious about what was going on. But by the end of the session he was joining in the discussion, asking questions and even making suggestions for how to put some of the ideas to work in the organisation. In an earlier session of Viva’s training the staff had also learnt the importance of listening to those they were serving and including them in their plans for developing the organisation. So, inspired by that, and greatly encouraged by Ashram’s interest and understanding, the staff decided to begin training him in basic accounting.

For several months now Ashram has been working side-by-side with the two staff members who are coordinating the organisation’s finances, gradually taking on more responsibility. The hope is that when Ashram is old enough he will actually be able to work full-time for the Delhi House Society, providing him with a job and giving them a familiar, trustworthy and well-trained employee.

One of the staff members described it as a ‘double blessing’ of the Viva Equip Projects training – saying that although they had expected the course to help them improve their organisation, they hadn’t expected it to end up giving a child a vocation as well! They went on to say: “We just can’t get enough of the Viva Equip training. We feel more positive about the future of our organisation because of it – it is very motivating. Things are changing for the good.”

READ MORE ABOUT VIVA EQUIP PROGRAMMES

Ofelia with Jose Carlos when he first started coming to her lessons in 2001

“When I grow up, I want to be a thief.”

This was Jose Carlos’ reply when asked, aged nine, what he wanted to be when he was older. Not just any thief though – “I want to rob banks. My brother, he steals bikes, and I don’t want to be like him. I will steal from banks instead.”

I suppose you could admire his focus: very few nine-year-olds have quite such a clear idea of what job they want to do. And it’s easy to see what motivated his career aspirations – he grew up in the small suburb of Santa Ana, El Salvador, surrounded by poverty, one of six children his mother struggled to provide for as she scraped a living collecting trash. But thankfully Ofelia Lopez, the director of a local project in Viva’s San Salvador network, had a different vision for his future…

“When I heard Jose Carlos say this thing, my heart just broke for him.” Ofelia told us. “To be so young and to have this view of the world, and of himself, I knew it was so far from what God wanted for this boy’s life.” So Ofelia went to visit his mother, suggesting that Jose Carlos start coming to the basic education classes at her foundation with about 15 other children from the community. Desperate for him to have a hope of a better life, and unable to afford to send him to the nearest government school, she was thrilled at Ofelia’s offer.

“The problems did not just disappear overnight,” Ofelia explains, “it was a long process for many years of Jose Carlos coming to us. We found a mentor for him, someone to talk to him about his character and his relationships and to counsel him. He began to learn things about the world and people and about opportunities in life. But we could not have taught him as we have done if Viva had not first taught us. Before Viva Equip we were willing to help Jose Carlos; after Viva Equip we were able to!”

Eight of the foundation’s staff members, including Ofelia herself, have been trained through Viva Equip Projects in the last five years. As well as learning how to make sure children are protected and looked after physically, emotionally and spiritually, they have also improved hugely in the areas of financial planning and project design, enabling the foundation to grow. Jose Carlos is just one of the children to benefit from the wonderful care and support that Ofelia’s staff are now able to offer: the foundation currently provides education and meals for more than 200 children in Santa Ana. This gives them an alternative to working at the large community dumpster with their parents, and helps to teach them skills that can ensure they don’t end up working there with their own kids one day.

And Jose Carlos has proved just how effective that is: he is now 20 years old and is training to be a doctor. “I saw him just the other day at church,” Ofelia smiles “and he said me, ‘Mami, now I am in my second year of college and one day I will be a doctor, and every day I praise God for you. I would not be here if it was not for you. Thank you.‘ He is a wonderful boy now, so kind and so good with the younger children in the community. But I say to him that it was not just me. I tell him – so many people worked together to make you who you are.”

HELP EQUIP OTHER PROJECTS IN EL SALVADOR

READ MORE ABOUT VIVA EQUIP PROGRAMMES

NEWSFLASH: The Vice-President of Guatemala is taking policy advice from a five-year-old.

And not some child-prodigy five-year-old, whose parents are governors or rich contributors to government campaigns. A five-year-old who was born in a tin shack next to the city dump, who has not yet started school and whose parents have never even voted. But these facts didn’t stop little Ingrid, from La Terminal, Guatemala, from telling Dr. Raphael Espada that it was his job to help keep the country’s children safe.

So how did she get her chance to bend the ear of Guatemala’s second most powerful man? It was through Viva’s ongoing Buen Trato (good treatment) campaign, which was given an award of recognition by the government. Accompanied by 19 of her fellow Child Ambassadors, Ingrid helped to lead an event at the Royal Palace, facing an audience of over 200 leaders of child and education-related organisations, including the Minister for Education and the head of the government’s Human Rights department.

The event was opened by the oldest of the Child Ambassadors. The 17-year-old boy spoke forthrightly about how the government needed to make children a priority, not just with their words but with their actions. Then a shy young girl got up and, quietly but steadily, told her own personal story of a childhood characterised by constant hunger, regular beatings and the roving hands of several local police officers.

Many listeners were shocked by her story, which gave the next Child Ambassador a captive audience as he took the mic and explained some of the main ways adults could change their behaviour to make sure children were kept safe. He then invited everyone present to sign the Buen Trato petition and commit to making sure the children of Guatemala were given the best possible treatment.

As part of the campaign adults are given a sweet to eat, as a sort of ‘inoculation’ against treating children badly. It was just after Ingrid handed a sweet to Dr. Espada (in fact she actually put it in his mouth for him, much to his surprise!) that she delivered her simple but profound policy advice: “Now you have to keep me safe, and every other children too. Please tell all the people and just make it a rule for everyone. Thank you!”

READ MORE ABOUT VIVA’S WORK IN LATIN AMERICA

HELP SUPPORT THIS GREAT CAMPAIGN

‘LIKE’ VIVA JUNTOS POR LA NIÑEZ ON FACEBOOK FOR REGULAR UPDATES

The local authorities and the city-wide network in Cape Town had been watching Flamingo Crescent with growing concern. Despite regular meetings to discuss the community’s living conditions, stories of high crime, unemployment, health issues and the lack of care for the ever-increasing child population kept flowing in.

A week before Christmas a devastating fire swept through the field, destroying 20 shacks and killing one little boy. Having witnessed the frightening destruction of the fire, many children were noticeably traumatised, and the network set out straightaway to get them help. The coordinator of a project within the network contacted the police to try and sort out trauma counselling for the children but was told that aspect of their service was no longer functioning. The coordinator desperately reached out to the Department of Social Development, only to discover that their counsellors and social workers were already away for holiday. Not giving up, the coordinator used her connections within the network, eventually locating one social worker who helped her begin to arrange appropriate counselling for the surviving children.

But the work did not stop there. The coordinator found out that the boy who died in the fire had a baby brother in need of special attention after being hospitalised by two serious rat bites. Working with the network, the coordinator was able to place the baby into safety without delay or difficulty.

We are filled with praise for the coordinator’s determination and perseverance to find counselling for Flaming Crescent’s children. Unfortunately the consequences of the fire are still being felt and we invite you to join us in prayer.

Please pray…

For the boy’s baby brother. He will be growing up without his family or his older brother. Please pray for his continuing health and upbringing under the new care. May his life be filled with love and safety.

For the children affected by the fire. Pray that God will provide comfort and strength so they can fully heal from the trauma after this terrifying event.

For the network social workers. Pray that they will have the wisdom to know how to counsel each child, as well as the patience to take the time to help them.

For the families who are again homeless. Please pray that they can find shelter that is safe and appropriate for raising children. Pray that God will give the outside communities compassion and generosity to help the homeless families that are ousted and those still living in the terrible conditions.

For the authorities and the network. May God give them wisdom in how to handle this situation and how to deal with the families who have lost their homes.

Lloyd and his daughter, Anya, had come across Viva in March 2011 at a children and parents’ worship event with Simon Parry, Viva’s Ambassador, and became increasingly interested in Viva’s work. When signups for the HK100 came, Lloyd saw a chance to use his hobby to help: “As a keen runner, I have dreamed about running a 100km ultra marathon for quite a while but wanted to use this opportunity to go beyond something that was simply a personal experience and would have an impact upon the lives of others,” Lloyd told us.

His interest in Viva came from his past work with families in poverty and seeing first-hand how children were affected by those circumstances. He also considered what practises were used to make the change lasting and effective: “I am aware of the value of ‘structural soundness’ when reaching populations with limited resources, and so this was an important factor when deciding to run for Viva as they have considered the sustainability of their work by partnering with others and creating networks of local organisations. This will ultimately benefit the children and communities they work with on a long-term basis and can avoid some of the issues that occur when charities respond to immediate needs.”

During the months of training mentally and physically for the run, Lloyd and his daughter, Anya, took to Facebook, Twitter and blogging to spread the word about Viva. Anya was just as passionate about Viva and became an active partner, joining her father’s efforts by creating a video to show that children can also help children.

‘By Children for Children’ – A Video for Viva HK100 from Lloyd Belcher on Vimeo.

The Belchers have raised HK$22,824.19 (£1861.97) so far and are still aiming to meet a goal of HK$50,000 (£4,078.94), and they hope this is only the beginning.

“I have enjoyed working with Viva Hong Kong. The support from all the incredible volunteers who gave up their time to wait at remote checkpoints to refill hydration packs, offer food, clean socks, kind words and a smile meant a huge amount to me as I ran. I hope to continue supporting Viva’s valuable work in the future.”

Lloyd finishes 100km at 11pm; he ran 62.1 miles in 15 hours!

HELP LLOYD MEET HIS GOAL AND DONATE

READ MORE ABOUT LLOYD AND HIS TRAINING ON HIS WEBSITE AND ALSO READ HIS OWN REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE RUN

You can also turn your hobby—running, cycling, arts and crafts, baking, etc—into a cause to benefit children at risk. SET UP YOUR OWN DONATION PAGE or CONTACT US

READ ABOUT ROB AND LEON, WHO ARE ALSO DOING A PHYSICAL CHALLENGE OF WALKING 5,000KM FOR VIVA

We all have to make decisions about the future. What university should I go to? Where should I live? Should I get married? What job should I be in? Should I use my body to make a living?

Hold on, let’s rewind. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never asked myself that last question. But that’s what’s on the mind of Juana, a 14-year-old girl from El Salvador, who I met this afternoon.

She is one of about 80 children who come to Fundacion Amor (the Foundation of Love, one of the projects in Viva’s San Salvador network) every day for lunch, games and help with their homework. Juana’s mother brought her and her younger sister Claudia to the project about five years ago, as she couldn’t be around to take care of her daughters when they weren’t at school – her job in one of the ‘bars’ in central San Salvador took all of her time.

Fundacion Amor’s director, Elisa, told me that both girls were very quiet and shy when they first arrived. “It was only when they had been with us for almost one year that Claudia finally opened up to one of the staff about what had been going on in the home – their father had been sexually abusing both girls since they were about seven years old.”

No matter how long I work for Viva, and how many similar stories I hear in country after country, I will never be able to understand how a parent can do that to their own child. Even Elisa, who faces situations like this every day, was full of emotion as she continued the girls’ story. “When we learned what was going on, of course we acted quickly. We reported their father to the police and, praise God, they arrested him straight away. He is in jail now for his actions! Also Viva has been providing a counsellor for us, to help talk and listen with the girls, and this has made so much progress for them. Over the last two years we have seen them growing so confident and happy, they are completely changed.”

Elisa also told me that because of what Juana and Claudia have been through, they can sense in other children when they have experienced something similar. They have been getting alongside these kids and befriending them, and letting a member of staff know that they think something is going on. Several other cases of abuse have now been discovered and are being dealt with.

Yet despite the amazing progress that’s been made, Juana is now facing a new challenge: “She has done so well in recovering from this trauma, and she has even said that she can forgive her father, which is a miracle,” Elisa told me. “But now, as she becomes a teenager, we are beginning to see her act more and more like her mother and the other adults she sees in her home environment.”

Other staff at the project report that Juana is becoming increasingly flirtatious in her words and her actions, not only with boys her own age but with older men too. Elisa’s smile was sad as she continued: “We have tried to love and care for her in a way that shows what good healthy relationships should be like. But what has been modelled for her in all her life? What does she see in the community around her, and in her own family? Brokenness, everywhere. From a young age the ‘love’ she has been shown by her father has been all about her body, and looking at her mother’s job she sees sex as just another way to make a living. It is all she knows.”

It’s always such a mixture of emotions when I travel with my job – I hear some of the saddest and most horrific stories of what children have gone through, but I also get to meet people who are helping to make those children whole again. The staff at Funacion Amor are hopeful that as Juana continues the counselling sessions, and keeps coming to the project every day, that they can show her a different future, and help her choose a better life. Whatever she decides, what I saw today showed me that there is one thing she has no choice about: through Viva and the team at Fundacion Amor, Juana will be offered consistent love and support no matter what.

- Beth G, from El Salvador

HELP THE LATIN AMERICA NETWORKS AS THEY CONTINUE TO CARE FOR CHILDREN LIKE JUANA

READ MORE ABOUT VIVA IN LATIN AMERICA

Sergio and his younger brother, Marc, had gotten used to their contained life. Though Sergio pined for the freedom and the fun he used to share with all his family, the dread and fear that ruled his days slowly pushed that other life into distant memory.

When Sergio was only two years old his mother passed away and, with no sign of their father, Sergio and his nine siblings had to fend for themselves. His oldest sister took charge, working in a clothing factory to provide for everyone. Unfortunately, financial difficulties fell on the family and another sister, Liliana, decided to take Sergio and Marc to their stepfather in hopes that he could provide better care for her siblings.

However, his stepfather was usually away from home for work, so his wife was responsible for the children.“The first day we went to live with my stepfather’s wife she hit us because we did not like the food,” Sergio recalled. Even when they tried to stay out of the way and just play, their stepmother beat them and shouted that they were not to soil their clothing. She put them to running errands and doing housework, and at any sound of complaint she would beat them. Quiet and chores were better than being beaten, so they obeyed in terrified silence.

Neither child told anyone about the abuse, fearing more beatings. But when Liliana finally got the chance to visit, she instantly noticed that her brothers were behaving strangely. They were shy, quiet and disturbingly afraid. Sensing something was wrong, Liliana took them back home, where they were able to open up about the abuse.

As soon as someone in the Guatemala City network heard about Sergio’s family situation they sent a social worker to visit. Through this intervention, the case was brought to the attention of the local authorities, and Sergio’s family was able to find help. Sergio, Yamileth and Marc were able to go to a children’s home that was a part of the network, that would give them a safe and warm atmosphere. The boys were able to go to school and also have daily meals with the whole family.

Now Sergio is happy that he can study and has friends who love and respect him. He allows himself to dream of becoming a pilot and of sleeping through the nights without any trace of fear.

“My heart has been healed and I thank God that even through this difficult situation, he has control of everything that happens.”

SUPPORT THE LATIN AMERICA NETWORK AND HELP VULNERABLE CHILDREN LIKE SERGIO

READ MORE ABOUT OUR WORK IN LATIN AMERICA

STAY UPDATED WITH VIVA LATIN AMERICA ON FACEBOOK

Not really knowing how to deal with what was happening, Steven acted out; misbehaving in classes, skipping school and spending more time on the streets. The few times he went home, Steven lashed out at his brother and sister, and regularly snuck out of the house without letting anyone know what he was doing or where he was going. If something did not change, Steven was on his way to ending up on the streets.

His teacher, noticing the increasing absences and worsening behaviour, saw some hope in sending Steven to the Kampala network’s ‘Supercamp’ – part of the Child Ambassadors programme which seeks to teach children about life skills, their rights and how to ‘stand up and step out’ for other children in the community. To everyone’s surprise, Steven embraced the activities and the lessons from the camp. Not only did he make friends and participate in games, he was also very keen to learn about peer advocacy, good communication skills and responsible decision-making.

After the camp, everyone noticed a transformation in Steven. Now he helps his mum with the housework and caring for his younger brother and sister. One day he even arrived at school early to organise desks and sweep the classroom floors. The headteacher, taken by surprise, asked, “Who told you to come and do this?” Steven said, “No one; I wanted to come.”

Steven has also gained additional support as he deals with the remaining hurt from his parents’ separation. The network sends a trained mentor to meet with Steven regularly to help him talk about and cope with his situation. The sessions are allowing him to open up, and to think and dream about a bright future full of opportunities. As one staff member remarked, “One week can transform a child. If you invest in these children, it can make a difference.”

HELP CHANGE OTHER CHILDREN’S LIVES THROUGH SUPERCAMPS

READ MORE CHILD ADVOCATES STORIES

Photo credit: reuters.com/Jamal Saidi

Children playing innocently outside their homes, or trying to be helpful by doing chores or running errands in the community… these are the latest victims of Syria’s conflict as violence in the nation rages on. As rebel forces attack civilians, protests turn violent and buildings are bombed, we are seeing that no one is safe – anyone who is within proximity of a clash, no matter who or what age they are, is at risk.

UNICEF have just issued a heart-breaking report that as of 7 Jan, 384 children have been killed and 380 detained, most of them boys and many younger than 14 years. Though human rights groups are speaking out for the government to protect the children, the number killed will certainly increase as the fighting continues. Already children’s bodies have been found amongst at least 74 killed late last week. Many of those who survive may also find themselves orphaned or unable to attend school.

Suffering, pain and death are not what we believe is intended for these vulnerable, young children. We praise God that there are very passionate groups and individuals who are feeling compelled to speak to authorities about keeping all children in Syria safe. However, as the meetings occur and the fighting continues, we invite you to join us in earnest prayer.

Please pray…

- For the children who are affected by the fighting. Whether they are injured, detained or have lost their parents or access to education, may children in Syria be protected. Pray that God will spread protection over them and also give them hope during these times of darkness and uncertainty.

- For the agencies who are meeting with authorities. Pray that their words will be effective and compel the government to take immediate action in protecting children. May the workers who are in Syria also remain safe so they can help the children around them.

- For the conflict to end and for a positive outcome. At the core of the fighting are important government and human rights issues facing the people of Syria. Please pray that God can soften the hearts of those perpetuating the violence so they can see that military force and fatal violence is not necessary. May the authorities come together and address the issues peacefully.

The overwhelming statistics of children who are being or have been trafficked may often paralyse us into inaction. Can one person change the realities these children face, let alone rescue them and give them a new life?

The answer is yes! A recent article from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States tells us that while many human trafficking cases are handled by authorities in law enforcement, the everyday citizen can join the cause to end human trafficking simply by keeping their eyes open.

In Asia, our staff work daily with some of these everyday local people who are passionate about helping children affected by trafficking. Viva Equip programmes train groups and individuals on how to search for, rescue and counsel a child who is trafficked. If a child looks malnourished, is covered in unexplained bruises or never has his illnesses treated, chances are that the child is being exploited on a regular basis. Taken to the right place and given proper therapy, traumatised children can begin to heal and look forward to new lives.

What Viva Equip also pushes forward is prevention to protect children from any harm at all. In Nepal the network tackles issues of sexual exploitation and family separation by highlighting the potential dangers children face when they are separated from caring adults or their families. Understanding that loving and being attentive to children can keep them off the streets and out of danger from those who want to exploit them for money.

“It is exciting to see how community members start to understand more about the issues of trafficking and how they can raise awareness. They’re also given link to a helpline that can help prevent trafficking of young girls and boys in the border areas near India as well as from Nuwakot,” said Binia N, the Viva Consultant for the Nepal network. “Thanks to intervention training someone helped government officials identify a young girl who was about to be trafficked into India and responded in time to prevent that from happening.”

But, as some reports state, there are 1.2 million children being trafficked – likely more from unreported or unknown cases. As we support those who are daily working to end child trafficking, we invite you to also join us in prayer.

Please pray…

- For the children who are being trafficked or are recovering from those experiences. Pray that God will comfort them in their fear and suffering, and that he will provide an escape.

- For those who are looking out for trafficked children. May they have wisdom and discernment as they search the streets and among the crowds, and may their words and actions be gentle to help heal the children who are hurting. Pray that God will also protect them in their efforts.

- For the end human trafficking. It’s a big ask, but we believe this can happen! Several organisations and professionals are coming together to raise awareness and crack down on trafficking rings, but there are still millions of victims – reported and unreported – who are trapped. Please pray that God will help us know what practical steps can be taken to change the situation.

SUPPORT NETWORKS WHO STANDOUT FOR CHILDREN AFFECTED BY TRAFFICKING

‘LIKE’ STANDOUT ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE UPDATES AND INFORMATION ON CHILD TRAFFICKING ISSUES

Unfortunately even the shelter of her grandmother’s house could not protect Niru from harm. A visiting uncle began to molest Niru and eventually drove her to run away from home. In desperation Niru sought out her mother, but her new step-father refused to let Niru into their home. As she walked away Niru realised that she had nowhere to stay and no one to look after her.

Then she met Pastor Surya, who had completed a Viva Equip People course that trained him in giving proper support to children. Pastor Surya was able to connect Niru to a project in the Kathmandu network and take her to the appropriate transit shelter where she was given a bed to sleep in, good meals and plenty of loving care. She has since undergone rehabilitation therapy and is showing signs of healing from her tough experiences. Now not only is she able to go back to school, Niru is beginning to feel restored.

SUPPORT CAREGIVERS LIKE PASTOR SURYA WHO CAN REACH OUT TO CHILDREN ON THE STREETS

READ MORE ABOUT VIVA EQUIP

READ OTHER STORIES FROM OUR NETWORKS IN ASIA

—
From: Sheeda Nakabuye
To: Viva Africa office
Subject: Improvements at Gateway Mercy Ministries

To all at Viva and the Kampala network,

I bring you warm greetings from the entire family of Gateway Mercy Ministries here in Uganda, hoping and praying that you are doing well.

As you know we are a Christian organisation that helps children who are orphans, abandoned, neglected or children of young single mothers. We are providing accommodation, medical care and education, as well as instilling the best moral values in the children we care for. Thanks to Viva Equip Projects we are now doing this at an even better level.

Since we began the Viva Equip Projects training we have identified some areas that were a problem for us and that we would like to improve. One of these areas was making sure that our place was a safe and good space for the children to be in, where they would not hurt themselves, get dirty or catch diseases.

We are so thankful that when we applied for an Improvement Grant as part of Viva Equip Projects that you entrusted us with the money. We have painted all the walls inside and outside and have properly built the unfinished walls; we have made the toilets clean and with a proper door; and we have been able to put in a covered kitchen area instead of just cooking outside. The training taught us what we needed to be doing for the children and then this grant helped us to actually do it – God bless you!

We had some challenges while we were doing the work, because there were sometimes heavy rains that could destroy the repaired floor and the painting. But as you see we have now finished and we feel so blessed to look around us. We have included the pictures so that you can see this amazing change here.

The children and staff are more proud of their school than ever before. Now our project looks like it is a proper home, fitting for these children to live in. We are also now living in a healthy and clean environment and this has reduced the risk of spreading diseases like cholera or chronic diarrhea, since all the trenches have been repaired.

So I end with special thanks to you again. It is always a joy to be a part of the network and may God continue to bless and reward the work of your hands.

Webale nnyo,

Sheeda Nakabuye
—

Thank you for helping to make children’s lives better by improving the quality of the projects that care for them!

If you are not yet a part of this exciting work, please do visit viva.org/equip for more information or to donate online.

Some of you went a little mad…

Members of Grove Free Evangelical Church in Clanfield, Oxfordshire were very much not late for the very important date! They raised £545 by beating the Christmas rush and holding a Mad Hatter Party in the summer featuring activities, decorations and games based around the theme:

“We had a fancy dress parade with characters in theme; our food was a bring-and-share high tea with inside-out sandwiches, upside-down cakes, giant muffins, miniature cookies and wobbly jelly with chopsticks. A very talented member made tiny dormice from clay and nestled them in tiny dolls teacup and saucers she found in a charity shop. It’s a lovely thing to show the children and teens in our church that raising money for such charities as Viva is a very valuable, worthy thing to do, and it can also be fun and interesting – something you can invite friends to!”

Others got decorative inspiration…

Mumbles Baptist Church in Newton, Swansea usually holds a shoe box appeal for donations, but this past season they decided to think outside of the box. Instead they set up a one-metre high Christmas tree in front of the church and adorned it with envelopes made of Christmas paper, asking members to place money in them every week.

“We then emptied envelopes every week but folded the envelopes and put them back on the tree…The tree had a wonderful array of colours in the end,” church member David told us. The project raised £900 in addition to the £300 given by the church matching the cost gifts to the children.

Some got a little ‘waste full’…

Pauline from Frinton Free Church in Essex helped organise a recycling event in a friend’s chalet house. They rallied friends to donate surplus Christmas materials such as Christmas cards, wrapping paper, ribbons and decorations to sell along with tea and homemade cupcakes. The event capped off with a showing of a recycling Christmas film.

“Three friends decided they could do something small and easy,” Pauline told us. “This was very successful and beyond our dreams.”

Others put their business caps on…

During St Thomas’ Church Christmas Fair in Kendall, congregation member Jenny championed for Viva Christmas Parties by manning her own stand: “The fair this year had the theme of ‘Doing Justice’ so more emphasis was put on these issues, all of which link to Viva.”

She sold Christmas cards and beads from Uganda, as well as held a donation-based Nativity cookie-decorating activity.

Some got a little musical…

For the second year in a row, students from Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (OICCU) held two carol services in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. The chorus of 900 voices during each service, followed by a Christmas message, inspired not only lively conversations about the real meaning of Christmas, but also generous gifts to children at risk, raising £772.20.

“The idea of putting on Christmas Parties for under-privileged children was something we thought was very worthwhile,” said Caroline, a student who was part of OICCU.

Others got the party started…

Fiona, a long-time friend of Viva, turned her own Christmas party into an opportunity to help children. “We want to support Viva because they are a trustworthy organisation who are committed to a huge vision to help thousands of children and we realise they need a lot of partners to make this happen,” Fiona told us. She hosted a Christmas Canapé Party, asking for donations upon entry, which would give each guest a welcome drink and as many delicious homemade canapés as they could eat!

We would like to thank all our supporters who have helped bring delight to thousands of children throughout this Christmas period. We are really looking forward to seeing what you come up with next year!

INSPIRED TO HOST YOUR OWN PARTY OR HAVE OTHER IDEAS TO RAISE MONEY FOR VIVA? CONTACT US NOW!

READ HOW YOUR EFFORTS HELPED CHILDREN ACROSS THE WORLD CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR

Angels singing. Mary giving birth in a barn. Shepherds, wise men. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. We’ve all heard the Christmas message many times, and often Christians can run the risk of becoming almost numb to it. But a few weeks ago, at a Viva Christmas Party in Cuba, more than 60 children were so struck by the message that they made the decision to accept Jesus as their personal Saviour.

The party had all the usual components you might expect: food, presents, games, puppets. But everything was centred around helping the 480 children at the party to understand the great truth behind Christmas, the real cause for celebration – that God loved each and every one of them so much that he sent his own child to earth to live, and eventually die, so that they could know God and be loved and forgiven by him.

After the Christmas story was told, and the children were asked if they wanted to talk or pray with someone about becoming a Christian, the first child to run to the front was 9-year-old Luisito. He lives at one of the children’s homes involved with the Cuba network, as no one knows who or where his parents are, and for him the chance to be a part of God’s family was the best and most exciting offer he could think of! Hot on his heels were about 65 other children, all eager to get to know God better.

Each child who came forward was later paired up with another child from within the network, one who is already a strong Christian, so that they can be guided and supported in their faith. They were also given their very own copy of the Bible. After they had received the Bibles they spoke out prayers of thanks, with one child capturing the feelings of the group by saying, “Thank you God for all of the fun at this party, and for the presents and our Bibles, but most of all thank you for the best present which is your love for us at Christmas and all of the year!”

READ OTHER CHRISTMAS PARTIES STORIES FROM THIS YEAR

For most of Rani’s life, her father’s addiction to alcohol created an atmosphere of chaos and anger in their home. Like any child Rani watched the way her father acted and began emulating his behaviour. By the time she reached grade 10, Rani was behaving like an angry, hardened man.

Then in December 2010 Rani was invited to a Viva Christmas Party at her local church. She had so much fun playing games, making friends, watching performances and hearing a Christmas message that she wanted to start attending church regularly. As the weeks passed, Rani became more gentle and caring towards others, and also started to love and respect her elders.

Her father saw this change and was touched. To the surprise of Rani and her mother, he made efforts to be a more patient, kind father and eventually overcame his addiction. The whole family has been attending church regularly and are living happily together, united by the peace and joy of Jesus.

READ OTHER CHRISTMAS PARTIES STORIES

Working with Community Albums, our Uganda network produced the following advert, which aired at the end of last year on two Uganda television networks for over four million viewers. Since then people from all over Uganda have called us to express how much they appreciated the message. Some shared how it was already making a positive impact in their communities as people started see the caregivers’ role in child care and protection.

But we believe that this message is not only for Uganda; it is for people everywhere to know that children are worth our time.

Living in a poor village on the Nepali-Indian border, Naisha was no stranger to hardship. She rarely saw her father; and her mother slept through most of Naisha’s waking hours, recovering from her busy nights working in the local brothel. They were always struggling for money, and Naisha had come to regard anything more than one meal a day as a luxury.

Like mother, like daughter?

One day, when Naisha was just nine years old, her mother told her that she had arranged for Naisha to begin working in the brothel alongside her. It wasn’t much to ask, she said; she would only have to see four or five ‘customers’ per night, just enough to give the family some extra income.

When Naisha refused, her mother grew angry. She said if Naisha wouldn’t work in the brothel she would be sent away, as they couldn’t afford to keep her if she wouldn’t help bring in any money. She told Naisha to pack up her things and get ready to go to Biratnagar, a large town several hours away, where she could stay with some relatives. Naisha was apprehensive, but did as she was told. That was the last time she saw her home.

The nightmare begins

They arrived in Biratnagar late at night and went immediately to a large house on the outskirts of the town. The door was opened by a man who leered at Naisha as he beckoned her inside. Etched in Naisha’s memory is what came next: her mother simply told her that this man would be her boss and that Naisha was to do whatever he said. Then she just walked away, leaving a bewildered and frightened Naisha alone with the man who would make the next year the hardest of her life.

The insults and the shouting came first. If she didn’t cook his evening meal exactly the way he wanted it, if she lingered too long over one task. Soon he began to hit her, kick her, throw her against the wall whenever she displeased him. Then the night-time visits began. After a while she didn’t even feel anything when he forced himself on her; she was numb. Almost every day she imagined running away, but she had nowhere to go.

A way out

One morning, miraculously, Naisha’s opportunity came—her boss was out when her neighbour, a long-distance truck driver, knocked on the door.

When Naisha’s bruised face and dazed demeanour forced him to ask questions and he discovered what was going on, he told her he could help her escape. He knew there was a Christian organisation patrolling the border near Koiladi, on the lookout for girls being trafficked, and that if he could just get her that far they would take care of her. There was no time to plan, no time to think. Naisha just nodded and followed him out of the house, barely believing it was all real.

One year later

Naisha often thinks about that day, although it’s a bit of a blur: the long drive, all the commotion at the border; getting a police escort to a local transit shelter.

The staff at the shelter, run by Viva’s Nepal network, cared for her for several weeks, while they looked for a place for her to stay more permanently. Her physical wounds were tended to by a doctor; and a counsellor, whose kind face and caring attitude is Naisha’s clearest memory, helped her begin to work through the hurt in her mind and in her heart. Slowly but surely, the old Naisha began to reappear.

She now lives with the family of a pastor whose church is part of the network. She attends daily school sessions at another network project where she can spend time with other girls who understand what she has been through. Together they talk, paint, play music and study English—in fact, Naisha is thinking about becoming a teacher one day. She says she does not want to try and locate her parents; she prefers to stay in the loving safety of the pastor’s home, and he and his family have assured Naisha that she can stay as long as she wants.

Hope for the future

Viva’s StandOut campaign supports our networks in Asia so that children, just like Naisha, can be rescued from dangerous and damaging situations and brought to a place of safety and healing. The campaign also works to make sure that more children never have to know what it is like to be abused.

There is no doubt that what happened in Biratnagar has left its mark on Naisha. But, thanks to your willingness to StandOut against this kind of injustice, it hasn’t destroyed her. It hasn’t robbed her of a future. It hasn’t taken away her smile.

STANDOUT WITH US AT VIVA.ORG/STANDOUT AND HELP MORE CHILDREN LIKE NAISHA TODAY

‘LIKE’ STANDOUT ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE UPDATES AND INFORMATION ON CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING

“This is the day we have waited for, for so long,” said Didas, Mbarara’s Viva Equip People (VEP) centre administrator. He went on to congratulate the students on completing their VEP course, a programme that equips childcare workers to work with children effectively in challenging contexts such as poverty and abuse. Having gone through the course himself, Didas knew that each graduate’s incredible achievement meant that many more vulnerable children could be reached, protected, listened to and cared for.

Across Uganda 500 more students attended VEP graduation ceremonies, each passionate to confront the harsh realities facing children at risk. “The problem is that children’s rights are violated; they are treated like slaves; they are seriously beaten; they are burnt with boiling water and fire; there are children with no shelter; there are children sleeping in bushes. Our children are suffering,” said a local policeman during a ceremony, highlighting the great need of caregivers to protect children.

The VEP students, though, seemed already to have put their training into practice, and many saw the difference before the course was complete. “I realised that our organisation was not always reaching the most vulnerable. Thanks to what we have learnt, things are changing,” said a graduate in Kampala. Others, so enthusiastic about the training, were eager to spread their knowledge. “I’m now spending more time with the children and following up the issues they face,” said a primary school teacher in central Uganda. “The training on child protection and trauma and resilience was so helpful. I shared what I learnt with the District Education officials and they want to share it with others.”

Many learnt the crucial lesson that listening to children and involving them in decision-making can cultivate their confidence to speak up for their rights. Mary, a graduate in the eastern region, told us, “Before, we were not involving children’s ideas. The course has changed the way we relate to children, how we see them and value them. It has helped me to look at life from the children’s side.”

But speakers and staff emphasised that training needed to accompany a passion to bring change for children: “Jesus spoke about looking after the children, particularly orphans, but you cannot give out what you don’t have inside you. What is in you is what you give out,” said Ema, one of the VEP organisers. It is why the VEP staff were excited that ministers and pastors were among the graduates. “We are so happy about this because we know that church leaders are very influential people. Almost every day they have a congregation to share their vision with and now they can share a vision of excellent care for children.”

Through the Viva Equip People course we are beginning to see communities change and grow as local teachers, church leaders and childcare workers are given the tools to support children at risk. As the Guest of Honour at the Mbarara ceremony, Reverend Johnson Twinomujuni said, “If any nation is going to develop we must look after our children.”

SPONSOR A CAREGIVER NOW TO ‘EQUIP ONE, HELP MANY’

READ STORIES ABOUT HOW VEP TRAINING HAS HELPED CHILDREN

With epilepsy and learning difficulties Tony requires constant care and special medication, which is provided for him by the school project he is part of. After he had gone home for previous school holidays, Tony had returned with cuts and bruises and without having taken his epilepsy medication. So staff thought it would be better for Tony’s wellbeing to stay at the project with a few other children who also could not return home. Yet even Tony’s normally happy demeanour and love of laughter could not mask his disappointment at not being able to do as his friends were.

Then some exciting news started spreading around the project: there was to be a Christmas party! Viva’s Kampala network was hosting four Christmas parties in different communities around the city, and there was one taking place close to Tony’s project. His school had just become members of the network, and so the staff were thrilled that the five children staying over, including Tony, would be able to have a proper Christmas celebration.

The party gathered children from many network projects for a time of fun, food and Christmas festivities. Tony eagerly joined in: “It was amazing to see Tony and his friends laughing and playing, joining in games and making new friends with children from other projects,” observed Viva staff member Kezia M’Clelland. And he wasn’t the only one having a great time: ten-year-old Ciara, a friend of Tony’s from his project, earned loud applause after she led everyone in singing a Christmas song and had a big smile on her face for the rest of the afternoon.

The children also heard the Christmas message of Jesus coming to earth because of his love for every one of them, assuring them that they were each very special. At the end of the day as Tony and Ciara were enjoying Christmas cake, they asked a staff member, “Can we come back tomorrow?”

Every year we help our networks around the world to throw Christmas parties in their communities, giving children a chance to celebrate in a new and unforgettable way. So now Tony will not have to feel left out as his friends return with fun stories to tell each other, because he has one of his own. As one of the project staff members said, “This is their Christmas.”

READ STORIES FROM OTHER CHRISTMAS PARTIES

HELP CHILDREN LIKE TONY AND CIARA CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS

This is part of World Vision’s 12 Blogs of Christmas.

During a round of visits, we approached a small house where a young man opened the door and greeted us politely with a stern yet gentle, mature yet young face. He introduced himself as Taneshu, 22 years old. “My dad died when I was 14 and my mum died just after, leaving me alone with my 12-year-old brother, Simba. He has learning difficulties and needs regular nutritious food along with help to wash, dress and keep well.”

When we asked about older relatives, Taneshu shook his head, saying that relatives did not care for Simba well when they tried. So Taneshu dropped out of school for a contract job to provide for his brother and himself. Now that the contract has ended, Taneshu doesn’t know how they will survive. “The hardest is when he is hungry and doesn’t understand why there is no food,” Taneshu said, anxiety etched on his face. “He starts to wander off and look for scraps.”

Taneshu told us that a church is trying to support Simba’s enrolment in a centre for the disabled. In case financial difficulties cut off that support, though, he is looking for another way to make money without an education. But he is determined to stick by his brother. “He’s my brother and I want to continue looking after him…His home is my home.”

We talked to a number of youth facing hard circumstances like Taneshu and Simba’s that make education inaccessible, each with their own stories of loss or extreme poverty. In their situations, school is the last thing on their minds. Costing $30 per term along with fees for school uniforms and materials, education is just another bill they can’t pay.

“This term many pupils missed the first 3-4 weeks because they didn’t pay fees. Less than half ever pay the full amount,” a school told us. Children who do not attend school wander the streets and, as further conversations revealed, sometimes engage in criminal and harmful activities. We met a church leader who expressed deep concerns: “Compared with other places, Rugare is the worst in children who are not going to school. Without education we will be creating a community of thieves.”

Listening to the educational needs of Rugare’s youth and children, I started to understand how vital The Bridging Schools programme was for the community. Not only does the programme help children like Taneshu and Simba catch up on school they’ve missed, it also provides them with a safe place during the day—a church. “I think there is nowhere to go other than churches to look for help. Churches are good for us. They provide for the needy and will make people know that someone loves them,” a youth said. Another told us, “If there was no church, we would be lost.”

I could see that people wanted to respond to Rugare’s needs and revive their community, even in the midst of hardship and poverty. There is much to be done in the township, as well as for Taneshu and Simba, but with the collaboration of resources and capacity, Rugare can soon start to drive change.

Please pray…

- For Taneshu and Simba. The team is trying to connect the two brothers to an agency that can look after Simba and allow Taneshu to resume his education. Please pray that there will be people who can provide essential support for both brothers.

- For Bridging Schools and Viva’s work in Rugare. As Viva’s team in Zimbabwe work with Rugare members, especially after analysing our research, please pray for wisdom and willing cooperation. Also pray that God will give the team strength as they might face challenges and initial resistance.

- For Rugare’s people, churches and agencies. Undoubtedly the Rugare residents desire to see change but lack the resources to carry actions forward. Pray that hope can boost their morale and continue to encourage them through their daily struggles. Pray that the churches can respond to the community’s need with God’s love and grace.

LEARN MORE ABOUT VIVA’S WORK IN ZIMBABWE

LEARN HOW YOU CAN HELP

Making our way to the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe, we entered into the neat streets of Rugare, a tightly enclosed community surrounded by the Kambuzuma Road and in possession of only two entrances. It is mockingly called ‘Komboni’, which means ‘the compound’ – in other words, the place where you get stuck…

Living day to day

For two weeks our team knocked on doors, gathered focus groups and talked to people across the spectrum of the community. At first I was surprised at the layout of Rugare. Unlike the winding roads and community clusters I was used to in Kampala (where I volunteered with Viva for two years) Rugare’s buildings and houses were built in orderly rows. People were selling goods in the streets and kids were running about – what any decent township would be like. Then, as we approached a quaint two-bedroom house, the façade began to peel away.

“There are three families here. One of four children, one of six children and another one of six,” said a child outside the house. Sure enough, 16 curious children streamed out of the front door to get a peek of their visitors.

This living situation is common throughout Rugare as many families teeter daily on the brink of survival. Some struggle so hard to provide a roof for everyone that two- to three-bedroom houses often shelter up to four families.

Overcrowding is only one of the different signs of how poverty affects Rugare. From the many tired responses, I sensed that primary caregivers are weighed down with financial pressure. Fathers who want to work cannot because of high unemployment; mothers who want to meet their children’s needs cannot because they had nothing. Many felt that it all came down to money – it was what allowed them to survive, and thus both the biggest necessity and the biggest scarcity.

Abused and unaware

As our team discussed other issues with families, we discovered disturbing accounts of child abuse. With so many caregivers unable to provide for the family, children often shoulder some of the financial burdens. They go out on the street with a sole focus on earning money, but without knowing their rights they can end up being physically and sexually abused.

“The children are easily deceived. Boys do child labour, carrying heavy sacks, but the workers know they can’t complain and so don’t treat them or pay them fairly,” a church leader told us. Other children tried to sell food or other goods, but despite the crowds I saw on the streets, few buy anything, so children and youth turn to selling sexual favours.

“In Rugare parents send their daughters to look for bread. However, they don’t give them a dollar to buy the bread. Having no money, that child soon learns that her body can make money,” a man told us. But even then abuse is taken to another level. A father told us, “The girl child is defenceless when she is trying to sell something. She may be raped and they might still not give her any money.”

The youth themselves were sadly matter-of-fact when asked about the causes of sexual abuse. “We need money to survive” a youth wrote. They see that “prostitutes are the breadwinners of the family”.

Then we learnt of ‘Marabu’, a nickname for the wasteland between Rugare’s industrial and residential areas. Without a proper playground in Rugare, children occupy themselves in Marabu by swimming in sewage, collecting scrap metal and playing with carelessly discarded rubbish. But their place of play is also a place of dread – a big ditch easily hides any sexual activity that occurs, consensual or otherwise. A still-traumatised 15-year-old boy had confided in a male member of the team that he had been a victim of an attempted homosexual assault and did not know what to do.

But at least he spoke up – even though the local school held rights awareness lessons, the justice system is very unclear and children often just remain silent about instances of abuse. “Children are afraid to speak up, they are scared that action against [adults] will in the end become [adults’] actions against them,” a local councillor confided in us.

It was easy to look at this situation in anger and frustration, but then it dawned on me: this is poverty. It’s not that all adults were taking advantage of the young, many just did not have the energy, access to justice or knowledge of how to right the wrongs. The primary focus on simply surviving the next day keep the prevalence of child abuse hushed. “People in Rugare have a heart and passion to see change, they just lack resources as they are beyond our control,” the local councillor said.

During a community presentation of our research, adults, churches and local projects expressed genuine desire to keep children safe and give them education. With Viva helping to facilitate community action, I do believe that hope can be restored. The people of Rugare can be rejuvenated to work together and see that children and youth are cared for, protected and valued.

To come: Education and the Bridging Schools programme in Rugare

LEARN ABOUT WHAT VIVA IS DOING IN ZIMBABWE

WHAT YOU CAN DO

How many of us wish that we could send a message directly to the government? That we could tell them the things we think are important and highlight what needs to change?

Well last Christmas, in a community playground in the heart of El Salvador’s capital city, 400 children let the leaders of their country know exactly what was on their minds.

The setting for this extraordinary opportunity was a Viva Christmas Party, for which a group of local organisations and churches put on a festive celebration for San Salvador’s children. They forged a link with the country’s Ministry of Social Inclusion and together they developed the idea of allowing the children to send messages back to the wider government.

So amid the chaos of games, clowns, face painting and presents, a giant mural was created with hundreds of messages for the country of El Salvador. Every child at the party was encouraged to write or draw on the mural, which was delivered to the local government offices in the week following the party.

Despite their youth, the group seemed to have a pretty good grasp on the things that could help their country become a better place. Roberto, aged 12, wrote that “we should have no children on the streets” and nine-year-old Nancy wrote “let there be no violence and crime”. Nubia, at only 11 years old, was very direct in saying “the President should do good things for the country” and a surprising environmental awareness was shown by Ramos, aged 10, when he wrote “Do not cut down trees, and you will have a better El Salvador. We must look after our country for the future” and illustrated his message with colourful forests and rivers.

Giving children a voice is just one of the things that go on at Viva Christmas Parties. Every year Viva invites thousands of children at risk across Africa, Asia and Latin America to attend a Christmas party in their community. For some it’s the first time they get to celebrate Christmas in this way. The parties not only provide each child with a present, a full stomach and the knowledge that they are loved and valued, but also connect the children to local projects that can support them in years to come.

This year the Christmas parties are being held in 20 different cities across the globe, and Viva would love to be able to invite as many children as possible. If you would like to help a child at risk go to a party this Christmas, take a look at www.viva.org/christmas Whether it’s holding your own Christmas party, doing your gift shopping through Viva, downloading a special festive song from iTunes, or just sending a text message, there are many ways you can use your Christmas to give a child an unforgettable one.

This article was also published in Christian Today on 21 Nov.

A glimmer of hope entered Shona’s life when she heard that a local church was starting up a Bridging School, part of a Viva Network Zimbabwe initiative to help kids catch up in basic English and maths when they’ve missed out on school. Shona excitedly went to sign up for the programme, only to have her hopes dashed – her aunt refused to give her any time off.

When our volunteers discovered Shona’s situation, they visited her aunt to work something out. After a few discussions the aunt agreed to let Shona attend school as long as she still helped with household duties and cared for the children. For Shona to juggle her responsibilities while attending a regular school would have been impossible; but our teachers allowed her to bring her baby cousin along to the lessons so that she could attend school three times a week.

Shona is just one of the 16 million children under the age of 18 who have lost one or both parents to HIV. Zimbabwe, with 1 million children orphaned by AIDS, has one of the highest proportions of orphans per capita worldwide. Like Shona, 72% of those children affected by AIDS are not in school.

This year World AIDS Day is all about ‘Getting Zero’ – “Zero new HIV infections, Zero discrimination and Zero AIDS-related deaths.” The campaign has laid out 10 goals for 2015, among them: “All people living with HIV and households affected by HIV are addressed in all national social protection strategies and have access to essential care and support”.

Bridging Schools exist for children in different types of disadvantaged circumstances, including being orphaned by AIDS. The staff are constantly watching for children like Shona, aiming to fight the statistics by providing the vital support that can give children a brighter future.

Please pray…

- For children who have been affected by AIDS, whether they are living with the disease or have lost parents from it. Pray that their communities would be able care for them and give them access to basic needs such as food, education and health care.

- For Shona’s aunt. We believe she must also be facing difficult circumstances if she feels she has to force Shona to help her around the house. Please pray that God would be able to provide for the family’s needs so that Shona can continue her education.

- For AIDS research and treatment. Though organisations have made significant steps in reducing AIDS-related deaths, the current economic climate has slashed much needed funding. Pray that God would bless the ongoing research for ‘Getting Zero’ so that we might one day see a world without AIDS

READ OTHER STORIES ABOUT BRIDGING SCHOOLS

LEARN HOW YOU CAN HELP

At the beginning of November two intrepid adventurers, Rob Lilwall and Leon McCarron, set out on an epic winter expedition through the heart of China to raise money for Viva’s work in Asia.

Carrying all of their gear on their backs, including portable kayaks and filming equipment, they began amidst the wastelands of outer Mongolia and are now heading south by foot through the Gobi Desert. Crossing into China, they will follow the Great Wall down to the turbulent waters of the Yellow River, where they will inflate their kayaks and paddle downstream to the legendary city of Xi An. Then it’s just a simple hike through the snow-capped mountains of central China before they reach their finishing point at Rob’s home in bustling Hong Kong.

This route from Mongolia to Hong Kong should take about six months of walking and kayaking...in freezing temperatures!

“Some people think we’re crazy to do it and some people have been really excited and wanted to join us!” says 34-year-old Rob. “But we actually just feel really blessed to be able to do an expedition like this for such a great cause.” 25-year-old Leon agrees: “There is so much I’ve been looking forward to about this trip, particularly the Gobi Desert, as it’s a place I’ve always wanted to see. But it’s more than that – knowing the trip has a bigger purpose, a bigger goal, is the main motivating factor for us.”

That goal is inspired by Rob’s experiences working for Viva in Asia: “Meeting a girl who’s been sold by her own family into the sex trade; speaking with a little boy whose earliest memories are simply of being hit and shouted at… it makes you want to do everything you can to change their situations,” he reflects, “and stop other children from ever having to go through that.”

As well as mountainous terrain, fast-flowing rivers, sudden snowstorms and a fairly monotonous diet, the boys are facing temperatures of around -20 during the day, falling to lows of -30 at night. Even ‘Man v. Wild’ adventurer Bear Grylls is impressed: “Walking Home From Mongolia is an epic challenge that will test not only [their] resolve but also their ability to withstand blisters!”

“I was told by my physio that I needed to gain weight for this trip,” says Leon, in reference to his very lean six-foot frame, “as we’re probably going to lose a lot of weight in the cold temperatures. But I just couldn’t seem to keep it on! Not with all the exercise.”

Both men are in pretty good shape thanks to their past adventures. A few years ago, Rob’s 48,000-km Cycling Home From Siberia expedition took him from north-east Russia back to his home in London via such wild corners of the world as Papua New Guinea, Tibet and Afghanistan. He wrote a highly-acclaimed book about his experiences and raised more than £20,000 for Viva. Leon himself has recently finished a year of cycling 14,500 miles from New York to Hong Kong and writes about his expeditions in his column in The Sunday Times.

You’ll be able to see Rob and Leon’s adventures on screen next year, as their trip has been commissioned to appear on television. “I just hope we live to watch the footage!” jokes Rob, although Leon ends on a serious note: “We know it’s going to be tough in places, but we know that we will keep going. If we give up or don’t finish we’re not only letting ourselves down but also Viva and the children we’re helping. So I know that we’ll make it to the end no matter what.”

Grylls remarks, “I admire their tenacity so much and it is a mission that will make a huge difference in so many kids’ lives.”

To find out more about the expedition, or to sponsor Rob and Leon, see the interactive map at viva.org/whfm for real-time Tweets, blogs and photos of their epic walk!

Araceli could not shake off the terror that overcame her during her uncle’s visits – she had to tell someone. She knew her parents loved her, but their close relationship with her uncle kept her silent.

Many children face situations of potential child abuse similar to Araceli’s, and Viva’s networks in Latin America are bringing schools and organisations together to confront the issue. Through the PROTÉGÉ programme, leadership figures are trained in Child Protection practices, such as noticing warning signs of child abuse in children and how to properly intervene.

Araceli’s school had been implementing the programme for their teachers, focussing particularly on the prevention of child sexual abuse in teachers’ daily meetings. So when Araceli opened up to her teacher about her uncle, the teacher knew immediately what to do. With Araceli’s permission the teacher talked to the head teacher, who in turn called Araceli’s parents straight away. Her parents, who had complete trust in the uncle and suspected nothing, were very grateful for the intervention. They were able to take measures to end the uncle’s visits and protect their daughter’s innocence.

The PROTÉGÉ programme includes 17 other schools and organisations committed to training their workers in Child Protection. With Viva’s network strengthening links between churches, safe houses, schools and feeding centres, we are having a direct impact on more than 20,000 boys and girls in Latin America.

LEARN MORE ABOUT VIVA’S WORK IN LATIN AMERICA

In Vijayawada, India, 14-year-old Dhanya had ambitions to become a teacher, and anyone could see she already had excellent potential. Along with earning top grades, Dhanya won several prizes for speeches, essays and even drawings; she was well on her way toward a career she really wanted.

Dhanya and her 10-year-old brother Naakesh lost their father to AIDS. Their mother Safia, also infected with the disease, was getting weaker every day from her deteriorating immune system and multiple health problems; sometimes she was unable to even put a step forward. Fearing her days were numbered, Safia’s only thought was: “Who will take care of Dhanya and Naakesh?” She beseeched relatives for help, but none were able to promise any financial help or care for her children. In desperation Safia pulled her daughter out of school to marry her into a good family, but she didn’t realise that the marriage of a minor was illegal. As a concerned mother feeling hopelessly bereft of options, she thought that marriage would bring her daughter security.

Fortunately, Dhanya was part of the Right to Education Project in Viva’s Vijayawada network, so our volunteers were able to step in before it was too late. They visited Safia and told her about the legal implications of a child marriage and emphasised that Dhanya had a brighter future by staying in school. Soon Safia was able to see the long-term benefits of the programme and that Dhanya’s talents would indeed make her a fine teacher.

With support from her mother and our network, Dhanya is now regularly attending school and preparing for her Grade Eight examinations like all her classmates. She is back on track toward becoming a teacher and can confidently pursue her dreams again.

Please continue to pray…

• For Dhanya and Naakesh. Pray for their situation, having already lost a father and facing the possibility of losing their mother at such young ages. May they seek the Lord for comfort and also rely on Him for strength to continue striving for excellence in school, even during difficult times.

• For Safia. Pray for her healing and that she will have enough strength to spend time with her children. Pray that her anxieties will cease as she puts her trust in God to take care of her young children.

• For the Right to Education Project, part of Viva’s Dehradun and Vijayawada networks. There are 20 volunteers helping over 100 children to attend school and improve their grades. May they have the wisdom to know how to guide these children, as well as the eyes to see and the ears to hear which ones are in situations similar to Dhanya’s in order to reach out and help.

Molly starts a 'No Treats' week for Viva!

Molly Woods may seem like a typical 10-year-old: she lives with her parents, goes to school and likes spending time with her friends. But there’s more to Molly than that.

While Molly enjoys her life, she is well aware that many other children are not able to have the same luxuries. She has seen footage on the news of children in impoverished communities “looking for things in clay by the river” and “playing in the mud”. Though they are always smiling, Molly can see that those children face tough situations every day. “I remember looking at pictures of children in Mumbai slums for a project I did on India in Year 4. It looked really different from my life here.”

When her Auntie Rachel told her about Viva, Molly jumped at the opportunity to help children just like the ones she had seen and read about, and she embarked on a mission to raise money straight away. She sold hand-drawn pictures, helped with chores around the house and initiated a sponsored ‘No Treats’ week. “It was extremely hard, especially when we went out for dinner. While I was doing it I also decided I should stop biting my nails, so I did – and that made my Dad happy!” Molly said.

Molly’s efforts raised £100.01, of which £70 is from her ‘No Treats’ week. “It was actually easy to get people to give me money, and everyone was so encouraging and generous,” Molly told us. “I enjoyed it very much and I hope to raise more money for Viva in the future.”

A good experience was only a bonus, though. For Molly, the driving force of her efforts stems from her simple desire to see children have better lives: “I have a good life…I also have enough to eat and drink and I think that all children should live as happy a life as I do. They deserve more than they have.”

Do you want to give up treats like Molly, or do you have your own creative ideas on how to raise money for children? FIND OUT MORE

Deaths from the disease account for 20% of all childhood deaths in the continent. So it is not really surprising that scientists are working so hard to bring the disease under control. And it seems like there may have been a breakthrough in recent months – a trial of a new vaccine on children under 18 months old has shown that children who were given the vaccine were half as likely to contract the disease as those who were not given it.

Although it is still early days, with final results from the testing not due until 2014, this is being considered a major breakthrough, and the closest anyone has ever come to developing an effective malaria vaccine. If successful, it could save the lives of millions of children, giving them the chance to grow up and enjoy a childhood free from fear of the disease.

• Praise God for this development and its implications for children at risk around the world, especially in Africa

• Pray for the scientists working on the trial of the vaccine. Pray that God would give them wisdom and understanding to know how to proceed so that it is as effective and successful as it can be

• Pray for the children who are at particular risk of contracting malaria – especially those who are already suffering from hunger, poverty and other health issues, whose immune systems are weakest. Pray that God would protect them

• Pray for Viva’s partner networks throughout Africa, for whom the threat of malaria is a daily reality. Pray that project workers would know the best ways to protect the children in their care, and that they would be wise in recognising the symptoms early so that children can receive treatment as quickly as possible

Right now many children in Uganda are struggling with exactly those issues, yet they remain unaware of exactly what abuse is – a crime. Children who are being abused often do not know what to do about it or where to go for help. If they think about coming forward, fear of punishment and further abuse paralyses them into silence. Viva is working to break that silence by helping children to speak up and speak out.

In a three-day training that drew nearly 200 children (aged six to 16) from different organisations in the Kampala network, we began the work of empowering children to become confident, effective Child Ambassadors in their communities.

“My favourite thing was learning how to keep my body to myself”, said Morolo, 12, expressing how valuable it was to learn about child safety and protection. Each child also received two cards: one containing information on what to do if they are being abused or see others being abused, and another with the phone numbers of several children’s projects they could call for immediate help. With the cards and the training they received attendees could also share their new knowledge and experience with other children.

Letting the children know that their bodies should not be abused was only the beginning. Part of truly listening to children’s voices means taking their opinions and ideas seriously, and so we asked attendees to help guide us about what their needs were and how we could best help them and other children in the local area. As they began to speak up, they started to understand that they could be powerful advocates for other children. They posed jarring questions to a policeman, a fireman and a local councillor about child abuse and how it was being handled by the government and law enforcement. Some didn’t know if parents could be sent to prison for touching a child inappropriately; others wondered why people, even policemen, raped children and were not punished; still others asked when the government would start paying attention to children’s affairs. Clearly children noticed that something was wrong with the system and they knew it wasn’t ok.

Morolo even offered his own insight into what might help protect the children in his community: “I think that instead of showing bad things on TV that children shouldn’t see, they should show more children’s programmes, cartoons, or something godly or educational.”

In these three days, children certainly showed their ability to stand up for themselves. But there are more children to reach, and you can help us do that…

UPDATE (November 17, 2011)

Since the training, a different buzz has been going around during lunch time in a Kampala primary school. In addition to the usual sounds of laughter and playing, children’s voices can be heard talking about the issues that are affecting them, discussing their rights and finding ways to help each other.

Their head teacher observed the scene in wonder: “Without my knowledge these child ambassadors went to different classes and each educated ten more children. They didn’t feel like they needed my permission to investigate about child abuse in our community. It’s amazing.”

The child ambassadors also talked to their classmates, discovering stories of mistreatment and situations breaching child rights. To advocate for their peers, the ambassadors wrote down the stories, calling for the school to protect the children.

This is only the beginning. As the children receive more training and support it will be exciting to see how these child ambassadors will help keep children safe in Kampala. You can continue to join their efforts in changing the attitudes of the community toward child rights and advocacy!

HELP VIVA GIVE MORE CHILDREN A VOICE

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW YOU CAN PRAY

*All children named in our blogs have had their names changed in accordance with our Child Protection Policy

As is so often the case, children living in poverty, on the streets, or with little adult supervision are particularly vulnerable to being kidnapped for this terrible purpose. Let us pray this week for these children to be protected, and for God to transform the hearts of the people involved so that the practice of child sacrifice will be stamped out once and for all.

Let’s pray also for the projects that are part of Viva’s partner network in Kampala, who are seeking to protect children from such dangers and from other risks:

Arua Child Development Centre equips children to have their lives rooted in Christ so that they grow up to be agents of transformation in society. They ask for prayer for some siblings whose parents have been evicted from their house and are now without land and shelter.

Spring Valley Nursery and Primary School looks after and teaches orphans and other children at risk from 2 – 14 years of age. They request prayer for Akello, a 3 year old boy who was picked up after being abandoned by his mother when he was 3 days old. He now lives with Anna, who works in the project, but will need sponsorship when he starts school.

Jesus Outreach Ministries runs a community children’s ministry in a slum area. Please pray for the safety of the children in the community, especially for Dembe whose father was tragically killed in a road traffic accident. His mother has other children and needs support to enable them to have an education, shelter, health care and security.

Village Care Kampala seeks to empower the community to offer holistic care for orphans and vulnerable children. They ask for prayer for Lutalo, a young boy who has a brain condition affecting his growth and development and who is not able to take care of himself. His grandfather, who cares for him, is much in need of a rest so pray that care for Lutalo can be provided in some other way.

Did you know that almost 80% of all responses to the gospel are made by children?

Today we hear from Jane Mackie (from the Children’s Prayer Network), who led one of the tracks at the conference with 40 of the 4/14-ers themselves, chosen to be ambassadors for their generation and represent the voices of children of children everywhere to the adults who were attending…

“These children had an amazing impact on the adult participants. They had the opportunity to give presentations (so often heart-breaking) about the children in their own nations, and the prayer and worship which flowed out of the session was almost unstoppable! Even on their ‘day off’ I came in to find the children caught up in worship, and their passion was infectious – the adults joined them, sacrificing their strategic planning meeting and instead spending a powerful time in prayer. God brought particular conviction about the lack of protection for children around the world, and one leader actually asked the children present for forgiveness for the times he had failed in this task – all the adults there were just brought to their knees in repentance, and the children were able to minister to them!

On the final day, as everyone at the whole conference was gathered together, 14-year-old Randhna* unexpectedly took to the stage and started to speak, apologising in advance for what he was about to say. He said that if the summit was truly about helping children then why was their voice not there, why were they not helping to lead? He challenged the adult leaders to allow the children more authority so that they were not simply watching from the sidelines but playing an active role in organising and leading the whole event. The adults present were deeply moved by what they heard – after all, these children represented the reason that they had all come together!

The whole week was a powerful reminder that this young generation are not simply waiting to be taught by adults, but also have a voice which God is using to teach adults and children alike, and a passion that often far exceeds our own.”

• Praise God that he gives children hearts that are receptive to the gospel, ready to hear from him and unashamed to be his witness on earth. Praise God especially for the children at this 4/14 Global Summit, that they were able to influence the adult leaders positively for the benefit of the children who they were representing

• Pray for the leaders at the Summit and for children’s leaders around the world. Pray that they would have the courage to listen to what children say and the discernment to recognise God’s authority and wisdom in their words

• Pray for children around the world who are not respected or listened to simply because of their age. Pray for Viva’s networks which are working to give children a voice; pray that God would equip them and allow them to have a big impact on the communities in which they are working

*Name changed in accordance with our Child Protection Policy

His father had died just before he was born and over the years his mother had become a very bitter and unhappy woman. She was frustrated by her circumstances, and exhausted by the daily struggle for survival, and Jomo bore the brunt of her resentment. The neighbours were reluctant to get involved in another family’s business and gradually the community simply grew accustomed to the tumultuous household.

Alison Ngorabo was one of those neighbours. A house-mother in a local project, caring for children who used to live on the streets, Alison always felt sorry for Jomo when she saw him sitting so sadly outside his house. Yet as he wasn’t one of the children she was responsible for she didn’t feel that she could do anything to change his situation. That is, until Viva Equip People gave her a different perspective.

Earlier this year Alison spent six months doing the Viva Equip People training with 28 other caregivers from organisations in the Kenya network, learning how to care for children in the best possible way. Whilst learning very practical childcare skills, such as how to counsel traumatised children and how to write and put into action a child protection policy, she also discovered the importance of showing children that they are loved and valued. Alison told us she felt a new enthusiasm for her work when she understood that good quality care was not about ticking things off a checklist, but about being a practical example of God’s love in her daily interactions with children. This newfound enthusiasm led her to stop at Jomo’s house, eager to see both him and his mother benefit from what she had learned.

As she began visiting regularly on her way to or from work, Alison was able to help Jomo’s mother understand that he had emotional needs as well as physical ones. She explained that although he was receiving enough food and had a bed to sleep in, he needed to be shown love and positive attention to help him grow up happy and healthy. Jomo’s mother was quite shocked and upset when she realised how her actions were affecting him, and she has been working closely with Alison over the last few months learning to interact more kindly with Jomo and to respond to the difficulties of their circumstances in a more constructive way.

Now when Jomo goes outside he runs around energetically, laughing and playing with the other local children, and the neighbours can’t help but pay attention to this lively and happy little boy.

READ MORE ABOUT HOW VIVA EQUIP IS CHANGING CHILDREN’S LIVES…

READ MORE OF WHAT THE NETWORK IN KENYA IS UP TO…

Unfortunately having no legal identity is a great disadvantage to children and can even put their lives at risk. Not only does it mean that they struggle to get access to education or health care, it also puts them at increased risk of being targeted for child prostitution, forced labour and involvement in drug cartels.

Once a child is a year old and has not been officially registered it gets a lot harder to establish their legal rights. It is possible, however, and many of the projects within our city-wide network in Guatemala City are working hard to do just that. Let’s pray for them this week…

• Pray for all of the churches and childcare projects in Guatemala who are seeking to serve the country’s ‘invisible’ children in this way. Pray that they would have wisdom and good understanding of the complicated legal processes involved so that many more children can be registered

• Pray for the hundreds of thousands of Guatemalan children who do not currently have a legal identity. Pray that more and more of these children would be reached by projects and churches like those in the network, so that they can get access to their basic rights such as education and health

• Pray for those responsible for deciding how the registration process works. Pray that God would give them the grace to make this process as easy as possible, especially for poor rural families, so that no child is put at risk of ‘disappearing’ into child prostitution or drug gangs

Although they are not making the headlines, the children of Libya are very much in the midst of the conflict. They are at serious risk of physical injury, from landmines and other dangerous remnants that they may be tempted to pick up as trophies or for scrap metal. Some have also witnessed devastating and psychologically damaging scenes, and since most schools, at least in Tripoli and Benghazi, have been closed since the fighting started, they are not able to find comfort in the stability of a daily routine.

Although it seems that Gaddafi’s regime has come to an end, his whereabouts are still unknown. Until he is found the fighting will continue, and there is now a risk that there may be in-fighting between the rebels who come from a wide range of backgrounds and people groups. Please pray for Libya’s children today…

Pray for an end to the violence that has erupted in this country, and for a new government to be established which would seek to serve its people

Pray for Christians in Libya who are trying to be witnesses of Christ in an extremely frightening situation. Pray especially for those serving children; ask that God would give them the wisdom to know how best to meet the needs of Libya’s children in a way that models Christ’s love

Pray that God would intervene in the lives of children in Libya, healing them from the physical, emotional and spiritual wounds that they have suffered

Tragically this is a situation that is all too common in Kenya. In one recent survey, a shocking 75% of women reported that they suffered domestic violence, and children in homes where domestic violence occurs are 15 times more likely than average to be victims themselves.*

Witnessing, and being subjected to, this kind of abuse can have terrible consequences. Matu is constantly anxious and guarded and has fallen far behind his peers in his education, still struggling to pass first grade while his friends are three grades ahead. Child victims of abuse are often led to believe that they are to blame and the depression and stress that this causes can result in delinquency, substance abuse, or difficulties in their own relationships, in which they can become perpetrators of abuse themselves.

Thankfully Family Pillar, a project in the Kisumu network, have learnt about Matu’s situation and are doing their best to work with the whole family to bring Matu to a place of safety and stability. It is a long, slow process, but they are hopeful that God can intervene even in this extremely complex and difficult situation.

Please pray…

• for Matu and his family. Pray that Matu’s father would be given the help that he needs to break free from his addiction and seek reconciliation and forgiveness from his wife and children. Pray that God would work powerfully in Matu’s heart and mind to bring him complete healing and restoration

• for Family Pillar as they face challenging and heart-breaking situations like this every day. Pray that God would give the workers there the strength that they need to keep pushing on. Pray also for the Kisumu network, of which Family Pillar is a member, as it seeks to support this ministry

• for the child-friendly churches that the network is establishing throughout Kisumu. Pray that these churches, which seek to reach out to children in their communities and include them in church life, would be able to make a real difference in the lives of children like Matu who suffer from domestic violence. Pray that God would give them the wisdom to stand against this violence and be a voice for the child victims

*stats from http://www.kapc.or.ke/downloads/chebogut.pdf

Those who stay in school have their work cut out for them: India has around 400 languages spoken within its borders, but only about 30 of these are formally used to teach in schools. Many schools use English because of the prestige that it carries, but because it is not the mother tongue of either the students or most teachers, children often don’t even learn the language properly, let alone the subjects that they are being taught.

But for many, the challenges are even more basic. For girls in India even a right to life is not guaranteed. Female foetuses are being aborted in alarming numbers, with the amount of girls being born compared to boys at a 60-year low. And those girls who do survive to school age are much less likely to be given an education than their male peers.

Sounds pretty dismal, doesn’t it? Thankfully the city-wide network in Delhi is working with 5,000 girls and boys in the city, with a focus on ending discrimination against the girl child. Caregivers from projects within the network are being trained to mentor girls living in Delhi’s slums and help support them and their families. The network is also making some noise about this issue in the public sphere, joining its voice with others who want to make India a more girl-friendly society.

Let’s add our voices into the mix too and pray for their work…

• Pray for the girls of India who are facing daily discrimination. Pray that God would provide opportunities for them to learn about their rights and to demand fair treatment
• Lift up the families of these girls. Pray that God would speak to them so that parents would be convinced of their daughters’ rights and would learn to treat them equally and prioritise their education
• Thank God for all that the network is doing and pray that he would continue to increase their impact and enable them to reach even more children. Pray too that he would make their voice powerful and that those in a position to change Indian society for the better would be moved to respond to the plight of girl children

Let’s pray this week for other children to have the knowledge and courage of Barbara’s friends…

• Praise God for the ‘Be your brother’s keeper’ advocacy training taking place in local projects throughout the network in Kampala. Pray that the children would be encouraged by the new knowledge of their rights and that feel the project leaders and carers would help them to feel safe and well supported

• Pray for children who are afraid to stand up for themselves for fear of being labelled a ‘gossip’. Pray that God would help them to discern when it is right to speak up and ask for help. Pray too that children would not only stand up for themselves, but would also look out for their friends and those around them, so that even from a young age they can learn to work together to resolve difficult situations

• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that ‘Every child has the right to be protected from being hurt and mistreated, in body or mind.’ Ask God to be with the many children across the world whose right to this protection is not being upheld, and pray that anyone responsible for hurting children would be convicted to stop immediately

Perhaps if you have children of your own you could talk to them this week about Barbara’s story and discuss the differences between gossiping and being a responsible friend. If they have friends who are being bullied or victimized, talk to them about what they can do to stand up for the rights of that person, and then pray with them for the courage to do it!

That’s where ‘Be your brother’s keeper’ comes in. Through the city-wide network in Kampala we are working with local projects to help them show children the difference between telling tales and standing up for themselves. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that ‘Every child has the right to be protected from being hurt and mistreated, in body or mind.’ Making sure children know what to do if that right gets taken away, from themselves or anyone else, is what our advocacy lessons are all about. So we were thrilled when one of the project workers, Ernest Kigozi, recently shared a story with us that showed kids from his organisation putting that into action…

After borrowing some expensive text books from an older boy at her school, Barbara, 16, found herself the target of constant bullying. “He was using the fact that she had borrowed the books from him as an excuse to follow her and accuse her of all sorts of things,” explained Ernest. “In reality he had lost his books after she returned them. I think he just needed someone to blame.”

One day the boy’s taunting took an unpleasant turn. “Barbara was walking home from school when the boy jumped on her and punched her. She collapsed.” Thankfully another young girl from Ernest’s project saw what had happened and ran to his house to get help. She had been listening in our advocacy lessons, and knew that she had to look out for her friend and tell an adult what was happening.

Ernest went with the girl to find Barbara and was able to take her to hospital to receive treatment. He then filed an assault case with the police. He also met with the headmistress of Barbara’s school to discuss working together to stand up for the girls in the community. “We discovered that the boy had run away to his village,” explains Ernest, “but we knew he would have to come back at some point because he had already paid for some exams. We asked the school to let us know when the boy returned.”

“When he came back he completely broke down. He was filled with remorse for what had happened. He went to the girl’s house and begged her and her parents for forgiveness. Barbara decided to forgive the boy and the case was dropped. News spread in the community that the girls at my project will stand up for themselves and for one another, and we haven’t had any similar problems since.”

READ MORE ON HOW WE ARE EMPOWERING CHILDREN TO KNOW AND STAND UP FOR THEIR RIGHTS

To make matters worse, over the year that the study was carried out not a single conviction was made against those involved. Although it is hard to know the exact size of the problem the report shows child sex tourism to be a particularly serious issue, with thousands of children working in San Jose alone for foreign tourists who clearly have no reason to fear prosecution. Many of these children live permanently on the streets and face a daily struggle for food and shelter, as well as the danger of being enticed into a gang where crime and drug abuse are virtual certainties.

So here are some ways we can keep the children of Costa Rica in our prayers this week…

• Pray for Costa Rican families and parents, that they would prioritise the care and protection of their children and that they would have sufficient money to provide for them. Pray that they do not end up in situations of high risk, like extreme poverty or homelessness, that make them very vulnerable to traffickers

• Ask God to work in the hearts and minds of the Costa Rican government, that they would have the determination and wisdom to put renewed effort into creating systems that can prevent children being trafficked into and out of the country

• Pray that the children who have been rescued out of situations of sexual exploitation would be given the right care so that they can overcome their pasts and grow into happy, whole and healthy adults

• Praise God for our network in San Jose, which runs a feeding centre for malnourished children, many of whom are street children. They are working with whole families to help them look after their children properly, not only making sure they are fed but also safe from the dangers of the streets. Pray that the number of children being helped through the network would continue to multiply, and that the families involved would absorb and apply what they are learning so that their children are well protected

Tragically, many parents feel that they have no option but to force their children into paid work, often unaware of what they are really being exposed to. Many sex traffickers trick parents into believing that their children will be selling goods at market or working as maids and nannies, when the reality is far more sinister.

Our partner network in Phnom Penh is determined to tackle these heart-breaking issues. Together we are working with local projects and community leaders to begin to address the poverty and lack of education that is so often a major contributor to children’s vulnerability to traffickers. Meanwhile, many of the projects within the network are also caring for those who have been rescued out of trafficking or street-living, as well as those who are still caught in these situations.

Let’s pray this week for the passionate and dedicated people involved in the network who long to see the children of Cambodia safe and flourishing…

• Praise God for the projects run by the network which are able to offer financial help and vocational training to children, helping to keep them safe from dangerous and harmful situations. Pray that the funds would be found to grow these initiatives so that even more children can be protected
• Pray for the Bong Paoun project, a member of the network, in which volunteers befriend street children and mentor them to make sure that they are attending school and having their basic needs met. Pray that more volunteers would come forward to work one-on-one with children who so desperately need this personal care
• Pray for the research project that the network is carrying out to discover exactly how safe-houses are helping girls and boys prepare for reintegration into society after being rescued from sex trafficking. Pray that the results would be used to serve the children and better care for their psychological needs

STAND OUT WITH US AGAINST CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING

SEE PICTURES AND READ STORIES ABOUT OUR WORK IN CAMBODIA

Living in the struggling community of Chitungwiza, Trevor’s family weren’t able to afford school fees or buy him the materials necessary for a year of studying. Due to a disability, Trevor has to use a wheelchair to get around, so travelling to one of the few government schools that hasn’t been closed down is an added complication. Trevor’s right to an education didn’t look like it would ever be fulfilled.

But then Trevor heard some exciting news from his pastor’s wife about a new project that Viva Network Zimbabwe was bringing to his church. They were to host a Bridging School, specifically designed to help those children who had not had a chance to receive any education, and it would be free of charge. The church was very near to Trevor’s home in Chitungwiza and easy to access in a wheelchair. Trevor eagerly signed up and, along with 17 other children from his community, attended his first ever lesson in January of this year!

Just a few weeks ago Isobel Booth-Clibborn, the Viva Consultant responsible for the Zimbabwe network, visited Harare to see how the Bridging Schools are progressing. “The churches in Chitungwiza have very little money” Isobel comments, “but they’re committed to serving the vulnerable children in the area, like Trevor. Some churches run tuck shops selling sweets to make money to buy firewood and food for the children at the Bridging Schools. 15 women from the local communities have been trained in food preparation and nutrition to give pupils a healthy lunch in between lessons. It’s so brilliant to see the whole area getting on board with this idea and working together – this really is a programme run by the community, for the community.”

When he enrolled as a student Trevor couldn’t read and all he was able to write was his first name. Yet already he is making great progress and can now read 32 different words. For the first time in his life, Trevor doesn’t dream of being able to get up and go to school with the rest of his friends: he is already there.

PRAY FOR THE WORK OF THE BRIDGING SCHOOLS…

READ ABOUT HOW VIVA HELPED DEEPTI FROM INDIA GET AN EDUCATION…

* Photograph is John Cairns for Viva (www.johncairnsphotography.co.uk)

In Ethiopia alone, 3.2 million people are in need of emergency aid, and in Somalia the number has risen to 2.5 million. Thousands of families are fleeing this country and trying to reach refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya – yet in some areas of Kenya the Global Acute Malnutrition rate has reached over 37%. Emergency aid is being provided by some governments, NGOs and charities, but more is needed if the disaster is going to be curbed.

• Praise God that He is our ‘refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble’ (Ps 46:1). Pray that He would be this for the children of East Africa, especially Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, who have been affected by the drought.

• Pray that these children would be able to get access to the practical aid that they desperately need, particularly food and healthcare. Pray for the Christian organisations working in these areas, that they would be a light shining in the darkness.

• Pray for the local churches in the affected areas. Pray that God would equip and inspire local Christians to help the most vulnerable, particularly children and families.

• Pray for those children who face the additional dangers of conflict and political instability, and who may be fleeing their home and moving somewhere completely unfamiliar. Pray that they would get good care while they are displaced from their homes, and would be able to feel some stability, for example by being able to attend school. Pray also that they would be able to return to their homes soon, without fear of violence.

“There is no such thing as a bad child, just a neglected one!” Pastor Felipe told me as we walked around a recently refurbished house in Manila, his latest endeavour to make a difference in his community. “These children do not need punishment! They need love, care, attention and time and space to grow to their full potential. They need a new beginning.”

The children he was speaking of are children in conflict with the law – juvenile delinquents. Pastor Felipe hated how they were being treated in his city, where they were just carted off to a small, cramped building in the city centre with no space and no one thinking of how to help them change their ways.

He had been asked by the local government to take over one of the juvenile detention centres, and he was determined to create a beautiful temporary residential centre where children could receive vocational training and have space and freedom for recreation. “I found the perfect place,” he told me, setting the scene for his story. “It was an enormous house, with extra rooms perfect for workshops and classrooms and such big amounts of land covered in beautiful plants and flowers!” He paused for effect. “But it was just too expensive for us. So I prayed. I prayed more than I have ever before.”

“Despite only having raised one third of the price for it, I really felt God was encouraging me to take action and approach the owners,” Pastor Felipe recalled. So he presented his vision, and his offer, to the family who owned the property. He told of all the children who would benefit; he told of the families who would be reunited; he told of a new, hopeful future for the children that society had given up on. “It was at that moment that God answered my prayers – the family accepted! They agreed the sale and I was speechless!” I congratulated him, and we took a seat on a garden bench looking over at the newly purchased house.

But I knew, as anyone who has worked with children knows, that this was not really the end of the story. “This vision is one thing Jane,” he said to me, “and getting the house is another thing. But making it a reality and making it work – that is yet another thing.” I nodded in agreement, knowing all too well that moving a project from theory to practically helping children is no easy task.

Fortunately Pastor Felipe, along with many of his fellow network members, has recently been through Viva Equip Projects. As a result of the training he has been able to ensure that his new project is well designed – with proper Child Protection policies, good staff care, trustworthy governance and a commitment to financial accountability – so that the children’s needs will actually be met.

“Viva Equip Projects came at just the right time. It has been a God-send!” Pastor Felipe concluded happily. “The network didn’t have to look for us to attend it, we ran to them. Every part of the training has been relevant to us as we start up this new vision. Viva has helped us make sure that we are putting the right foundations in place to offer the absolute best care to the children we help.”

And although this marked the end of my conversation with Pastor Felipe, really it marks a new beginning for many of Manila’s struggling children.

READ MORE ABOUT OUR WORK IN ASIA

SEE OTHER LIVES BEING TRANSFORMED BY VIVA EQUIP

Imagine being a child growing up in Zimbabwe today. If you go to school, then you are among the privileged 20% who have this opportunity. If you suffer from any kind of mental or physical disability, there is a very high chance that you will never have access to an education. There is also a one in six chance that you will have lost your parents to AIDS, meaning it is probably difficult for you to get access to medical care, regular nutritious meals and maybe even a safe place to sleep.

Thankfully, we believe in a God who can change the lives of Zimbabwe’s children! Here are some ways that you can pray for them…

• Through their ‘bridging schools’ Viva Network Zimbabwe is working to provide education and learning resources to children of all ages and backgrounds, particularly those who have been out of school for a while and need extra help to catch up. Pray that will God equip the people in this network to provide the best possible care for the children being reached
• Pray for the House of Hope, a new residential home linked with the network which plans to open its doors to 14 orphaned children later this year. Pray that their vision to be self-sustaining would be possible, and that they would have wisdom in appointing caregivers for the children. Pray that this would be a supportive and loving temporary solution before these children can be placed in families
• Another project in the network is Araunah Mission Fellowship Zimbabwe (AMFZ), which is working to provide visually impaired children with educational resources such as braille textbooks, audio tapes and voice recorders, as well as to organise regular fun outings for the kids. Pray that many visually-impaired children would be reached by this ministry. Pray for the financial support necessary to carry on providing these expensive resources

If you saw one of your co-workers do something wrong, what would you do? Your conscience might prompt you to tell somebody, to report it. But another quiet voice, perhaps a holdover from childhood, might also chip in, reminding you that ‘no one likes a tattle-tale’. So what do you do? To tell or not to tell… that is the question.

It’s certainly the question that Margaret Tawhere wrestled with when she saw one of her colleagues slap a young child across the face in a classroom at their project in Cape Town. The little girl was deaf, and communicating with her was problematic for many of the staff, but Margaret was still shocked that her co-worker would treat the girl in this way. But what would happen if she reported it?In South Africa the concept of loyalty to your peers, especially among women, is very strong – in a country torn apart by so much disunity and disagreement, sticking together and ‘watching each other’s backs’ is important. Yet sometimes that loyalty can cause problems: “Uncovering issues of wrong behaviour or of dishonesty is very hard” the director of this Cape Town project explained, “because staff members often protect one another and don’t want to be seen as telling tales. Of course it’s right that colleagues give one another support and it’s also right that they be united as a team. But not if those things compromise the safety of the children. That must always come first.”

Thankfully, Margaret did put the safety of the children first – she took a brave step and reported her colleague to their director. Margaret told her that in the past she would have been too scared to share any incidents like that, as she wouldn’t have wanted her colleagues to be angry with her or to label her a gossip, but that things were different now. “What made the difference?” the director asked. “Viva Equip Projects!” was the answer.

Margaret had recently finished the Child Protection module, where she was particularly struck by the idea that a childcare worker’s desire and duty to keep children safe from harm was a reflection of God’s heart and love for them. Margaret had felt convinced that “God was speaking to my heart about how the children were so important to him, and they must be so important to me, no matter what.”

So when she was faced with a choice, between protecting a child and protecting her colleague, she “knew the right thing to do.” And thanks to Margaret’s newfound courage, the managers are now aware and able to address the issue. The rest of the staff continue to work hard to make sure that all the children, not only the girl that was mistreated, are encouraged, supported and kept safe from any kind of harm.

So, to tell or not to tell? Thanks to Margaret we now know the answer to this question.

*names have been changed to protect the identities of the staff involved in this incident

EQUIP ONE HELP MANY – READ MORE ABOUT HOW VIVA EQUIP IS HELPING CARE WORKERS HELP GIVE MORE CHILDREN A BETTER FUTURE

Most young girls will have played at being a mummy. They will have baked imaginary cakes for their toys, put make-shift nappies on their dolls and pushed their mini vacuum cleaner around the house. But for nine-year-old Pamela in Uganda being in charge of a household was not a game: it was a reality.

When her mother walked out on the family, Pamela had to take over her mum’s duties. With her father working nights and weekends as a security guard, Pamela was expected to cook, clean, wash clothes and act as a mother not only for herself, but also for her baby brother.Play-time soon became a thing of the past for Pamela. Barely finding the energy to get herself to school, she stopped going to the Saturday club at her local church. It was then that Hope Mpirirwe, one of the church workers, noticed that something was wrong.

Having just graduated from the Viva Equip People course, Hope felt that she might be able to do something to help Pamela: “When I saw Pamela around the community she always looked so down. Because I had done the VEP programme I felt more confident to be able to go to her family home because I suspected there might be a problem there. I wouldn’t have dared before.”

Hope asked Pamela if it was ok for her to visit the house to see how things were with her family. She soon discovered that Pamela was acting as the mother of the household, yet Pamela’s father couldn’t understand why she was behaving badly all the time and performing poorly at school. “I talked to Pamela’s father about the situation and over a number of visits I helped him understand that a nine-year-old girl cannot do all these things on her own. She really needed him at home. I also taught him that a child needs simple things like hugs, especially when her mother is gone and she is sad. This I also learnt at VEP.”

Pamela’s father now employs a lovely local woman, a contact found through the network, to care for both children and look after the home while he’s at work. Hope says Pamela has come back to the Saturday club at the church and is even starting Sunday school, and that she is thrilled to be able to “just get on with being a nine-year-old again!”

SEE PICTURES AND READ MORE STORIES ABOUT HOW VIVA EQUIP IS CHANGING CHILDREN’S LIVES

READ MORE FROM THE UGANDA NETWORK

In August of 2009 India made changes to ‘The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act’ (RTE), altering it to give all children aged 6-14 the right to free education. The change in the law also required that private schools offer 25% of their places to underprivileged children.

But who is going to seek out the children unaware of their new rights? Who will bridge the gap between the private schools and the kids trapped behind financial barriers? Whose job is it to make sure that the law is actually put into practice?

The organisations and churches in the Vijayawada network have seized the opportunity. Already part of Jyoti, a Viva initiative that brings organisations and churches together to raise the status of India’s girl children, they have now launched a new project aimed specifically at girls like Deepti. They have been working to identify at least 100 girls under the age of 14 who have dropped out of school and, with the legal power of the new RTE, help them back onto the path to education.

Deepti herself was one of those girls, and the Vijayawada network managed to connect with her just when she needed them. They worked with her family and the school to resolve the issue of the exam fees, and Deepti was able to get back to class in time to pass her exams with flying colours!

READ ABOUT THE OTHER YOUNG GIRLS OUR JYOTI WORK IS EMPOWERING

SEE WHAT ELSE VIVA IS DOING TO MAKE SURE CHILDREN GET AN EDUCATION

“I sing for those who have no bread; I sing for the ones who don’t know how to write; I sing so that my voice will be heard; I sing because I want a happy world.”

Just 10 days ago over the World Weekend of Prayer those lyrics were sung by 30 children and young people in a church in San Lorenzo, Paraguay, moving many adults to tears. The song, ‘Que canten los niños’ (‘Let the children sing’), speaks of the many things that are possible when children unite their voices. “I sing to be respected… I sing to make my mum smile… Let me sing for those who cannot sing, because their voice has been silenced.”

Helping children understand their rights is a big part of Viva’s work in Latin America. Once they know that no one should be able to stop them from going to school, or from feeling safe, or from voicing their opinions, they can be encouraged and empowered to play a part in making those things a reality in their own lives. This church, a member of the network in Paraguay, wanted to give their children an opportunity to put that into practice, so they asked the under-18’s to run the entire service over the WWP.

The children were so excited to be put in charge and packed the service full of creative ideas using the 2011 ‘Together’ prayer booklet as their inspiration. They choreographed their own dances, presented songs to the congregation and used real life examples of things children go through to help the congregation understand and pray. Then they closed the service by holding hands and praying for their church to be a beacon of light in their city, that they would all care for the youngest and most vulnerable in their midst.

This is just one example from many – we have already had feedback from events that took place in 18 different countries over the World Weekend of Prayer and the number is growing every day. So let’s take some time to pray and praise God for all that took place.

Thank God for the growing numbers of people involved in the WWP every year. It is a privilege to see so many adults and children recognise the importance of prayer and the importance of children

Pray that the children who attended events would be moved to carry on praying, lifting up their needs and the needs of other children to God. Pray that God would move powerfully in their lives and that their faith would be strengthened so that they grow up rooted in him

Pray for adults around the world who were part of events over the WWP, especially those who were involved for the first time. Pray that God would continue to stir their compassion for children at risk so that they become a regular focus of their prayers

Read more from Latin America
Find more prayer materials

9-year-old Celia doesn’t have the internet. She doesn’t Tweet; she’s never Liked anything on Facebook; and she doesn’t care about joining LinkedIn. But that hasn’t stopped her experiencing the power of networking.

Living in a poor community in Bakuli, Uganda, Celia was suffering from a nasty abscess on her gum. It was easily treatable with the right course of antibiotics, but Celia’s mother had no way of paying for the treatment and so Celia’s mouth became more and more inflamed. She was also starting to get ill because the pain was preventing her from eating properly, and over the course of six weeks this started to take its toll.

Then Pastor Tusti came along. He had just become a member of Viva’s partner network in Kampala and recently attended a city-wide networking conference: “I believe it is the most important event I have been to this year. We were able to meet and talk face to face with so many local people working with children at risk. This was such an eye-opener, and we heard so many interesting experiences and met with every relevant person.”

It was through this meeting that Pastor Tusti was connected with another member of the network who was able to offer Celia free medical treatment! The gum abscess has now been removed and Celia’s mouth is healing well. Her appetite is also back to normal so she is no longer tired and unwell.

Pastor Tusti is also very encouraged by the success: “Thanks to these valuable contacts that I made through the network we were able to provide Celia with this basic healthcare. So simple, but it was the thing she needed. She is eternally grateful, and so are we – thank you CRANE network!”

READ MORE BLOGS ON HEALTH
SEE MORE OF OUR WORK IN AFRICA

Kenya, Ukraine, India, England, Paraguay, Jamaica, Uganda, Italy

** Did you pray this weekend? Email pray@viva.org with your pictures and we’ll get them up on the map! Also please do take the time to fill out our feedback form so we can get a better understanding of how you prayed over the WWP.

Viva’s Programme Development Manager, Jane Travis, tells of a recent experience with the network in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

When you watch a film, or go to the theatre, how do you usually feel? Do you empathise with the performance? Do you lose yourself in the plot? Or do you look on in frustration as the story fails to play out as it would in real life? Enter stage left, Theatre of the Oppressed…

“Stop behaving like a girl!” the headmaster shouted at one child. “No, no, no!” a childcare worker from the audience intervened, “you cannot say that to a child, you are encouraging discriminatory behaviour! You should do it like this…” she continued, rising to her feet to give stage directions to the actors. Before I knew it three more of the audience were on their feet, stepping onto the stage to take the place of the actors. The Theatre of the Oppressed was in full swing.

The whole thing lasted about two hours, and it was amazing how much fun it was to watch and how effective it was. Various child protection issues were acted out, ranging from helping children with behaviour difficulties to investigating domestic violence. The actors were told to behave in a certain way, whilst the audience were converted into ‘spect-actors’, intervening when they saw fit to give those on stage suggestions for improving the situation.

Although it started out small in Brazil in 1971, today Theatre of the Oppressed is seen in schools, churches, trade unions, regular theatres, universities and prisons in over 70 countries worldwide. Designed to be an entertaining and interactive learning tool it allows audiences to act out situations from their own lives and it makes them study their actions and attempt to improve them. It’s used by a whole host of people including social workers, psychologists, teachers and NGO workers – and this learning by doing is proving very successful.

Many people are sceptical – how many times have we tried to make work meetings interactive and failed, because most adults just want to sit, listen and take notes? But here I’m seeing it played out by people working with and for children, so their enthusiasm for play, learning and activity is already there. And to see people from more than 45 organisations all bouncing off each other’s ideas and helping to create a common understanding of a better world for children at risk, was one of the most encouraging and exciting displays of networking I’ve seen in a while. I’d definitely suggest an encore!

# Jane T, Viva
More on the Cambodia network

More blogs from travelling staff

14 million children in sub-Saharan Africa have either lost a parent to HIV and AIDS or are themselves infected. To put that into perspective, the total number of children currently living in the UK is 11 million.

It’s often hard to understand that these aren’t just statistics, but real children, like Peter. Peter attends one of the local projects in the Kampala network. He’s HIV+. His family are very poor and he’s becoming sick from a lack of food. His sister, Anne, struggles to cope with a childhood of unimaginable worries. They need our prayers…

• Please pray for Peter as he struggles just to survive, because of poverty and a lack of available care. Pray that God would heal him from his current illness and keep him healthy enough to lead a normal life. Pray that he wouldn’t face discrimination or prejudice because of his status

• Pray for Anne, who is vulnerable not only to the indirect effects of the disease but also to contracting it herself. Pray that God would protect her and give her wisdom about how to keep herself safe

• Pray for the family of these two children, that God would provide for them financially so that they have enough money to feed their children and get the right medical care for Peter

Despite these sobering stories and statistics, there is hope on the horizon. The Let Your Light Shine training we have developed, in partnership with World Vision, Compassion and Tearfund, is all about keeping those statistics down and making sure that children like Peter and Anne are safe from the dangers associated with HIV and AIDS.

Let Your Light Shine equips childcare workers with the basic facts about the disease, teaching them methods for its prevention and care. It also allows them to discover the truth behind dangerous misconceptions. Not only do they leave feeling capable of offering appropriate care, but they too can go on to train others in the same way. Through the city-wide networks in Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe more than 5,000 children are already benefitting.

So let’s give thanks for this exciting programme and ask God to continue using our efforts…

• Praise God for Let Your Light Shine and for those carrying it out, and give thanks for the children who have been protected from AIDS and HIV as a result of it

• Pray that God would give trainers the wisdom to teach the right things to the right people at the right time

• Pray that those receiving the training would make it a priority to put their new knowledge into practice, for the benefit of the children they are serving

• Pray that those who receive the training would see the importance and impact of it and pass it on to other childcare workers in their cities and countries

1) Read Shila’s story, then write or draw your reaction to it. As you do so, pray about the things that you are writing or drawing, and then keep the paper in your Bible to remind you of children like Shila. You can do this on your own or as a family, discussing your reactions and praying through them together.

2) If you have children, you could do the activity that Didas, the counsellor, did with Shila. Give your child a piece of paper and some colouring pens or pencils, and encourage them to draw pictures of their past, present and future. Talk about the pictures with them and let the pictures guide you in praying for your child.

And here are some specific things to pray for as you go through those activities:

• Please pray for children like Shila, who are going through difficult situations but find it impossible to express themselves in words. Pray that more children would have access to art therapy, and other alternative forms of counselling that will help them find their voice, so they can begin to be healed
• Pray for childcare workers who are struggling to break through invisible barriers to communication with the children they are working with. Pray that God would give them the wisdom to know how to reach out to such children
• Praise God for the Viva Equip People training, which gives childcare workers the ideas and practical skills needed to reach children like Shila with appropriate care

CHECK IT OUT:

This year’s World Weekend of Prayer booklet has a section on Media, the Arts and Entertainment – it goes into more detail about the influence of the arts, both positive and negative, in children’s lives. Feel free to download it, and please do consider joining us in prayer over that weekend (4-5th June)

www.viva.org/pray

“I was amazed at the effect of art therapy in helping children to communicate” said Didas, a childcare worker and recent Viva Equip graduate in Kampala, Uganda. “I used it with a child at one of my projects and I couldn’t believe how it brought her real thoughts and feelings out!”

Gone are the days when art therapy was used only by unconventional psychologists. Now it is widely recognised as a legitimate and powerful counselling tool, offering a unique window to the soul; a voice for the silenced; an outlet for the frustrated. As well as their therapeutic and often relaxing nature, the arts can also provide a means of symbolic communication. Art therapy is taught in the Viva Equip People module Key Issues in Listening to Children as a valuable tool for those who struggle to find words that express their pain, frustration or anger.

Such was the case for Shila, an 11-year-old girl that Didas had been counselling for some time without making progress. “She was having a hard time at home and was unhappy. I knew she wanted to talk, but couldn’t. So, I gave her a piece of paper and a pen and asked her to draw her past, present and future.” Tackling ‘future’ first, Shila drew herself standing in front of a class of children and explained to Didas that she wanted to be a teacher. “When it came to drawing the present she sketched a woman holding a big stick and when I asked her what it was she pointed to the woman and said, ‘That is my mother and that is her beating me.’” This gave Didas the impetus to speak to Shila’s mother about the issue, using knowledge he had recently gained in another Viva Equip module: Child Protection and Helping Traumatised Children.

Over several weeks of speaking with Shila and her family Didas has seen a dramatic change in the attitudes of her parents, and Shila herself is much happier and feels more able to communicate at home as well as in counselling sessions. Didas says happily: “Art therapy is one of the best methods for understanding children. They get so much more out of my counselling sessions now.”

You could help give more children like Shila ways to express their problems and receive vital support – find out how at our Viva Equip page

For many, the words ‘children at risk’ will conjure up an image of children living in the slums of Kenya, on the streets of Cambodia, or in the shanty towns of Brazil. But we sometimes forget that there are vulnerable children in every society, even the seemingly safe and secure nations right on our doorstep.

Throughout Europe children are in danger of ending up on the streets, being exposed to drugs and alcohol, falling victim to violent abuse and living in insecure and dangerous family situations. In the Romanian capital, Bucharest, alone there are an estimated 1,500 homeless children. 30% of these are consistently under the influence of solvents and another 25% are classed as occasional solvent-abusers. In the UK it was calculated that 71,000 children woke up on Christmas morning last year without somewhere they call home. Only on Tuesday a news report from the charity Barnardo’s has exposed the harrowing truth of child trafficking here in the UK, deeming it a highly underestimated problem that is quietly pervading many British towns.

So today we are focusing our prayers a little closer to home, as we look at some key issues faced by some of our prayer partners in Europe:

NOVI MOST INTERNATIONAL is a Christian mission agency working with young people in Bosnia Herzegovina.

• Praise God that they have been able to start a new ministry in Jajce, Central Bosnia, working closely with the local church

• Please pray for Drago, a boy with severely impaired eyesight who attends the children’s club. Local medical facilities are poor and treatment is expensive, so pray that God would miraculously open doors to allow him access to the treatment he needs

HOPE UK is a Christian drug and alcohol prevention charity for children and young people working through trained volunteer ‘drug educators’.

• Praise God that they have managed to recruit 9 new volunteers in one London Borough, even though many more are needed for other regions.

• Please pray for these volunteers and also for a financial breakthrough as income from trusts has almost dried up

ROMANIA INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FOUNDATION works to find foster placements for children in safe family environments.

• Please pray for funding to enable development and improvement of current foster-carer training

• Pray for them to successfully promote family-based placements rather than institutional care, so that abandoned and orphaned young people in Romania can receive the family love they need and deserve

www.viva.org/prayer

“For us here at St Luke’s it has become something our whole congregation is involved in” Kathy shares. “As well as offering financial support to the network, we are praying for them regularly. Our kids’ groups have also really grabbed hold of the idea, especially our afterschool ‘messy church’. It’s so great for them to learn about children in Zimbabwe and what their lives are like, and to pray for them.”

“And we love that it’s a two-way thing” she continues. “ It’s not just about sending money and hoping it does something good; we’re actually hearing from the team in Zimbabwe and seeing what our support is helping to accomplish.”

Rudo agrees: “We have received support and gifts from other sources, but it’s not the same. This is so much more than money – it is a matter of relationship. St Luke’s are working with children in their country too and we must pray for one another.”

Kathy is also very positive about the fact that their church gets to partner with a whole network. “It’s very unique” she says. “We hear great stories about individual children’s lives, but we also know that a whole city is being reached and that large-scale change is happening. Plus there are so many churches involved with what the network are doing – we love knowing we’re linked with a worldwide church family helping reach out to children.”

Clearly the two parties are both enthusiastic, but does it go further than that? Are we seeing positive changes in the lives of children at risk?

“Yes! It makes a big difference!” Rudo says emphatically. “Because of the gifts we have received we have been able to continue with our mobile Learning Library, taking books to 100 street children every week and helping with their reading skills. It has also meant that 30 staff from network organisations can take Viva Equip People training, and I have seen them interacting so much better with the children, and the kids trust the staff more now. I also know St Luke’s pray for us regularly and I feel sure that much of what God is doing for children here is due to the prayers of these committed people.”

Rudo also shares with us a more personal note of appreciation: “Some of St Luke’s money helps to pay my salary, because without the co-ordinator role none of our activities could happen. It means a lot to me that this church sees my value, and the value of the network.”

So what would these women say to churches considering a partnership with Viva and a network?

“If you’re looking for something fresh and fun that can involve your whole church, then this is a great way to support work with children at risk.” Kathy reports. “You get great information and stories to feed back to your church family, and we feel very connected. We are really excited about where God is going to take this partnership and how it can bless the Zimbabwe network and also our own church and community.”

Rudo’s response is no less enthusiastic, as she says, “From the point of view of the network, I can say whole heartedly that it is a great thing and I really hope that more churches will feel it is right to do it! I believe God has given Christians such an important task in making sure children are looked after, and the more we join together for this, the stronger we will be. Whatever else you do, please pray for us. More than anything, we need the partnership of God to be successful in helping children.”

Could your church partner a network?
Choose one of five city-wide networks based in Africa, Asia and Latin America and begin a three-year partnership of learning, praying, giving and going.
Call 01865 811660 or check out http://www.viva.org/involveyourchurch for more information or to become a Church Partner.

We all know that African proverb which says, “When elephants fight it’s the grass that suffers the most”. Wherever there is conflict it is always the most vulnerable, defenceless and innocent who suffer. And, unfortunately, that often means children.

In many of these countries, children are already struggling just to get access to food, healthcare and education. The unrest is not only making it more difficult to get hold of these things, but it is turning many children’s daily lives into a fight for their very survival. In Libya, in Misrata alone, at least 20 children have been killed and countless others wounded. In Yemen, 26 have died and a further 800 have been injured. And for those who do survive, safe drinking water and food are in short supply and schools have been closed for weeks.
What can we do to help these children? We ask for your prayers to improve the situation for the thousands of innocent children caught in the crossfire while the political uprising continues in the Middle East.

• Pray that God would move powerfully to bring about peaceful resolutions to the conflicts

• Pray that Christians in the affected countries, and throughout the world, would speak out on behalf of the children who are suffering, regardless of their families’ religious beliefs

• Pray that God would protect those children who have lost family members and others who are living in very vulnerable situations, and that they would know his love and peace even in such difficult times

The 2011 World Weekend of Prayer is rapidly approaching and we’re excited about how many people will be praying over the weekend. “Around the world we have a whole cascade of different events taking place” says our CEO Patrick McDonald. “People marching through towns, folk getting together in their churches and children gathering in city squares across many capital cities to have festivals and moments of prayer for children.”

This year the Weekend will take place over 4th -5th June and the theme for 2011 is ‘Together’, based on Jesus’ prayer in John 17: 22-23: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one – I in them and you in me – so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

It is really easy to get involved in the weekend – you can do it wherever you are, and for however long you have. From five minutes in your own home, to a church service or prayer meeting dedicated to the subject, every second of prayer counts. And we have resources to help equip you to pray for some of the issues that are affecting children all over the world today.

And you don’t have to wait until June – start praying now! Please pray…

• for all the churches, projects and networks around the world who are planning an event. Pray that God would be with them as they make their preparations, so that the impact of the Weekend will be even greater than before;

• for the children who have been invited to an event over the Weekend. Pray that they would understand God’s heart for them and for other children all around the world, and that the events would encourage more and more children to become powerful pray-ers;
• that God would hear and respond to his people and that we would see more and more children lifted out of poverty, abuse and vulnerability as a result of the prayers of the Weekend

For more information about the World Weekend of Prayer, please visit our website.
- For more information or to get a copy of the prayer booklet, please email pray@viva.org

“We want to help” the leaders proclaimed to the Kathmandu network staff. “We truly do, but we don’t know how! We see this problem everyday here in Nuwakot – women and girls treated as if they were nothing. Desperate girls have turned up on our doorstep pleading for help as they attempt to flee their abusers. But what can we do?” One of the leaders, Makol, insisted. “What can we, a mere five people, possibly do to change a situation that is so deeply rooted in our society?”

In some families in Nepal giving birth to a daughter calls for celebration, as it means that she will generate a considerable amount of income for her family in the future (at the very least through a dowry, but often through something much more sinister). Trafficking has plagued the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal for many decades, and there are too many young girls who still grow up with the fear of one day being sold into the red light districts of Kolkata, Siliguri, Kanpuir, New Delhi and Mumbai.

But Makol needn’t let the size of the problem stop him from acting, because he and his friends are not alone. About four years ago, Viva and the Nepal network created the Daughter project – to help Christian organisations, like the one Makol belongs to, work in communities and with families to stop children being sold in the first place. Daughter exposes and challenges the root causes of child abuse, sexual exploitation and trafficking in nine towns along the Nepali-Indian border, teaching communities how to keep their children safe.

A few weeks after the meeting, Makol and his friends started working in their town, holding awareness workshops using the Daughter toolkit. “We actually saved a girl from being trafficked!” Makol beamed in one of the feedback sessions with network members. “She was going to be sent to India and we managed to save her and get her back to her family! It actually works! Thanks to our awareness campaigns the community spoke for itself as a united front against trafficking and the news got back to us,” he excitingly recounted to anyone eager to listen.

Now Makol knows that ‘a mere five people’ can actually accomplish a lot – they can change the course of a child’s life.

** UPDATE ** These five leaders are now becoming even better equipped to be catalysts of change in their community, as our Viva Equip People training has just started in Nuwakot! Now they can learn the newest and best ways to keep children safe, to counsel traumatised children and to help children in the context of their family situation.

Have you ever had to study for a particularly hard exam, spending all night awake, drinking Colombia out of coffee and racking your brains over one particular question you just don’t seem to get? And how many new mums have felt so desperate when bedtime arrives and their tiny infant just doesn’t seem to want to settle down and go to sleep? “I should know what my child needs!” might race through your mind.

There are many moments in life when we feel alone in the face of a certain problem. So what do we do? Well, naturally, we would seek out the advice of someone who’s been in a similar situation. And how often do we actually find that we are not alone; that many of our classmates have found that topic difficult, or that all new mums have felt frustrated at some point? Someone might even suggest a simple solution, “Have you tried swaddling?” that suddenly makes our lives that much brighter.

Here in the UK there are many people and processes in place to make sure that help is at hand. But what if you are a poverty-stricken Mama and Papa, living in the slums of Kampala, not only scraping together a few coins to care for your own 5 children but also trying to take care of the 2 abandoned children that you found sleeping on your doorstep? These are the kind of people that Viva reaches out to, through our partner networks. People with huge hearts, who want to take care of these children but don’t have the money, the time or the know-how. They can never look beyond what one day throws at them and they rarely get any rest, becoming so completely engrossed by simple survival that they are unaware of what is going on around them and feel alone and desperate.

Situations such as these are exactly where Viva, and that trusty word ‘networking’, come into the game! The city-wide network in Kampala could help this Mama and Papa to meet others in similar situations, and to meet local projects, churches and groups who will provide support, prayer and, eventually, necessary resources. One small project once ran out of mosquito nets for their children, but, through the network, managed to get hold of other people’s spares… Another simple solution to a small, but potentially fatal, problem.

And that chain never ends… Our programme co-ordinator from Uganda recently went to Mwanza to share experiences and spread the ‘working together’ philosophy to other smaller and younger networks in Tanzania. She told the tales of the Kampala network, and how it has grown and developed over the years, surviving some very tough times at first: “We have grown through the sharing of knowledge and experience and have come out the other side a much stronger and more powerful network able to impact the lives of thousands of children!” she shared with the Mwanza network.

“When people are brought together by a common purpose there are all sorts of sparks of creativity,” she commented, after the meeting. “And when that purpose is children, you can just feel the added energy in the room.”

“Have you heard about the Early Encounter programme? It’s a great success in Latin America. That could be a strategy to use with street girls here in Mwanza,” was one of the many suggestions shooting around the room. “In the long term it’s always better to invest time and money into helping children get back to their families than keeping them in residential care,” said the Kampala networker to her Tanzanian counterpart.

And the learning curve continues, long beyond the limits of this article; from the individual to the thousands, this ‘networking’ just keeps going and going…

“I’m a numbers man, and these numbers are really something – 712 children are no longer on the streets of Latin America as a result of Viva and the networks this year. That’s nearly two kids every day!” Brian Wilkinson, our Chief Operating Officer and main numbers man, has just recently returned from an Early Encounter programme visit in Peru. He particularly recalls one centre in Lima…

When we arrived, the hall was filled with young girls and boys, cradled babies, mothers, fathers and even grandparents. Many parents were still arriving even after the event had already started, some sweaty and tired from having to hurry from their jobs out on the streets. However, their faces were lit up with smiles, despite the fatigue, knowing that in just a few minutes they would all take part in the celebration of something very special: their child was going to be given the opportunity to go to school for the first time in their lives!

In one corner of the room there was a table, covered with multi-coloured bags stuffed full of school materials – in fact the exact items, as I was told by a colleague, that these same children would normally be selling on the streets of the very congested Lima, home to more than 10 million people.
Not having books and stationary and uniforms is one of the reasons that so many children miss out on education in Lima. And if they don’t go to school they are more likely to end up playing, working and maybe eventually living on the streets, which is why our Early Encounter project with the networks is working so hard to try and catch children before they end up trapped in that life.

So at this event 30 children were presented with these bags of school equipment, and it was a wonderful sight to see the smiles as they collected their gifts. Those children are now attending a local school that is part of the network, one that is specifically aimed at teaching and supporting Lima’s child street workers. “We witness such a development of talent and skills,” Doña Nelly, one of the teachers of the programme, explained to me. “When we encourage them to continue, children do start to realise that change is possible.”

But there is more to this celebration than meets the eye… Helping street children in Latin America is not as simple as just giving them a bag of school supplies or offering them a place to stay so they don’t sleep on the streets – in fact the majority of the kids aren’t actually homeless. They are normally children who get up at the crack of dawn to trawl the streets, selling anything and everything to passers-by, but, who then return home to their parents at night. And although these parents were all smiling and proud, allowing their children to go to school is actually a real compromise for them, as young girls and boys normally have much greater selling power. Letting them go to school means that the family’s income might take a serious hit. That’s why Early Encounter focuses so much on working with the whole family, teaching parents how to care and provide for their children without putting their futures at risk.

This ethos was really clear throughout the day, especially towards the end of the ceremony when the City Council’s Social Development Officer got up to speak. “Children must live their childhood!” pronounced Maria Isabel Gonzalez. She told the entire room, “Treat your children well, don’t be afraid to hug them every day, and understand that play is far more important than working.” Then one particular mother, also a local shoe-shiner, gathered up the courage to step out in front of all of us, grab the microphone and interrupt the meeting, just to show her true appreciation for what the network has done both for her and her daughter. I was so struck by the sincerity in her voice, and by the gratitude I saw in every parent’s face, that this ceremony will always be a lasting memory of my visit.

“Life is not easy, and as children we have faced many people treading on our dreams. But with my songs I am saying that whoever you are and whatever has happened to you, you can live your dreams.”

Miguel Arevalos has helped to lead several nationwide campaigns against child abuse, he is a singer and songwriter for a local band and he will soon begin presenting his own TV show, broadcast to 150,000 people in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Miguel is also just about to celebrate his 15th birthday.

“My father left us when I was seven” Miguel confides quietly. “He was very bad with alcohol problems and so angry, it was hard for us and for my mother.” When he abandoned them, Miguel’s mother was forced to send his two sisters to live in a local orphanage while she and Miguel sheltered at a boys’ home that is part of the Cochabamba network. Yet it was here that he had the chance to become a Child Leader. “We had a vote, and out of six others I was chosen to be the representative for our project” smiles Miguel, proudly remembering his peers’ faith in him. “I was our ambassador, our leader, and it was my job to plan how we could make our community listen and take notice of the needs of children like ourselves.”

Approximately 100 boys and girls from various projects in Viva’s six Bolivian networks are participating in the Child Leaders programme, collectively representing more than 10,000 young people across the nation. The programme trains up and supports young people like Miguel to be a voice for their peers, helping them to plan campaigns and events to change local people’s attitudes to domestic violence and child abuse, mobilising them to change children’s situations.

Since first becoming a Child Leader, now over four years ago, Miguel has spoken out for others in a variety of different ways, beginning with the network campaigns and growing into singing, songwriting and now television presenting. His band, Tuex, is made up of three boys and two girls all under the age of 18. Miguel says that it is his vision that one day their songs will be played all over the city, “in market squares and discos and all the popular places, speaking out against things such as violence, abortion and abuse.”

Miguel’s songs will also feature in his new television show, due to air in April this year, alongside music from other local bands, interviews with Christian leaders and information on issues in other countries. Miguel says he wants to inspire local children to look outside their situations and see the needs of the wider world, as well as encourage them about their own lives.

As Miguel’s leadership skills have grown and changed, so has his family. His mother is now one of the co-ordinators of the boy’s home where they once sheltered, and the modest income she receives has enabled the whole family to live together once more. “I am so thankful to God for my life” Miguel concludes gratefully. “Before I was a Child Leader I would never have had the courage to do any of these things, or even dream them. But being taught about my value to God and how I should be treated, and actually seeing positive change in my situation, gave me such confidence and hope.”

Thanks to Miguel that message, speaking of confidence in your dreams and hope for the future, will be carried into homes all over Cochabamba this year.

“Children were lining up outside my office to confide in me!” An excited Macu tells a room full of smiling graduates, as she delivers a heartfelt speech at the recent Viva Equip People graduation ceremony on Saturday 26th March.

Macu is not the only one to feel this way. The ceremony has been an overwhelmingly positive event, with every conversation, speech and presentation reflecting the newfound confidence and ability of the 100 graduates in the room. When the course began, they were among the many people in Uganda willing to help children at risk but sometimes lacking the belief that they can help. Yet Viva believes in these people, and the VEP training is our way of making them believe in themselves. We want them to know that they can, do and will help thousands of children in their lifetime. And it’s not just theoretical, as David Nebali discovered…

David works in a community church in the mountains of Kabale, west Uganda, and through his role as Child Development Officer he has implemented the Child Protection Policy that they were taught to devise at VEP and can already demonstrate the big change seen in the way church members operate in his community: “For the first time a church worker reported a child protection issue to me, something that has never happened before!” A 16 year old girl from the community had abandoned her home and studies to marry an older man. “We encouraged her that it is so important for her to finish her studies.” David is still working with the girl, counselling her and encouraging her to move back home with her parents. “Thank goodness it was not just buried in the community, as it would have been before. Now I think we will soon see a breakthrough, as she is beginning to realise the enormity of her actions.”

If you would like more information on the benefits that Viva Equip brings to organisations, their workers and children everywhere, or you would like to support the work then click here.

“Sex education does not happen in most of India,” says Karuna Sagili, from Viva’s Delhi office. “All matters of the body and sexuality and sex are seen as taboo. In one school in Bangalore the teachers have stuck some pages together in the biology textbooks, so that children would not look at the pictures often. It is photos of a man and a woman, and all the parts of the body.”

Karuna feels that this widespread reluctance to discuss, or even acknowledge, sexuality, is a major contributor to the country’s high rate of child sexual abuse. “Things like rape or child abuse are never discussed by anyone, so how can those problems be dealt with and people be helped?” Well, on the southern tip of the subcontinent, the Bangalore chapter of Viva’s ASHA forum is helping to answer that question.

An India-wide project focused on bringing an end to child sexual abuse, ASHA, uses the city-wide networks as its local bases. “In Bangalore the team felt that we needed to begin simply – to affirm that sexuality is not bad, but is God-given,” shares Karuna. “Unless a child learns the value of their body, how can they ever realise what abuse is?” So, the ASHA team is going into local schools to talk with children about healthy expressions of sexuality.

The seminars have been held in several local schools and church-based education projects, and so far 348 girls and boys aged 10 to 16 have attended the sessions. One child wrote in her notes: “From now on I will not trust anyone who makes me uncomfortable”.

After the seminars are over, the team make sure that they carefully follow up with the schools. The ASHA team go back into the schools on a weekly basis following the sessions, and as different needs arise they can bring relevant network contacts with them, such as doctors or trauma counsellors. “Just talking about the issues, and seeing children become more aware, is such an important step,” says Karuna. “Only once the taboo is broken can we see the way forward to making sure India’s children are always kept safe.”

Last weekend about 50 of Oxford’s music-loving 20-somethings helped to raise money for children at risk by going to a rather unusual house party….

“It all began when I bought a smoke machine back in January… you can’t have a smoke machine and not scheme about how to use it!” says self-titled ‘Event Organiser’ Chris Swinburne. “And since we know so many people who are musical and in local bands, it seemed a great idea to have a kind of house party event that could showcase that.”

Featuring local acts such as The Kid Steel, Drake’s Drum and Charlie Mike Sierra playing a mix of covers and original tunes, and collecting over £50 for Viva, it really raised the bar for the average house party. “We just charged a small entry fee, more of a suggested donation really, so it was very low-key,” Chris explains. “But it seemed a great way to turn a fun evening into something more meaningful too.” The Number 8 housemates transformed their living room with blackout curtains, a full lighting rig, the infamous smoke machine and even a live TV link for those in other parts of the house!

Ears still ringing, guests trooped out at around 1am offering parting comments like “completely brilliant” “best house party ever” and “so, when’s the next one?!”

“We’d definitely do it again,” Chris enthuses. “I loved every minute of it. Perhaps in the summer we could make it a whole street party…” So if you’re an Oxford resident keep your eye on Headington to see if Number 8’s neighbours can be convinced! For everyone else, no matter where you live, why not start brainstorming about how you could do some FUNdraising for children at risk?

“Seeing the synergy between prayer and activism was a great awakening!”

Our International Prayer Co-ordinator, Chrissie, recently had the privilege of seeing what children can accomplish for their nations when you just give them the chance.

Friday 18th – Tuesday 21st February witnessed the 1st European 4-14 Consultation of Children in Transformational Ministry, hosted by Viva and Hope for Europe. 4-14 gets its name from a variation on the 10/40 Window theme. It refers to the fact that children between the ages of 4 and 14 are the most open and receptive to every form of spiritual and developmental input.

Chrissie says, “This is an opportune window for a previously silenced group of people to become key figures of transformational ministry. God is calling us to alter the way we view children and to respond to their importance and rightful place in his kingdom.”

30 attendees between 10 and 14 years, representing Finland, Slovakia, Croatia, Belgium, England, Scotland and Austria, all came together in Hastings for a weekend of prayer, discussion and activism. Children were invited to speak out about the problems that the young people in their own nations are facing, to listen to God and guide each other in praying for a better world for young people.

“It was a time for us to stop and realise how broken the young people of Europe are. One example brought to light was that the young people of Finland were suffering terribly high levels of depression. We were then able to pray together for all the hardships of the youth of today.”

And was it successful? “It most certainly was! It was such an incredible experience. There was a real sense of a blessing from God for Europe’s youth. Both adult and child attendees went away with a change in belief of what God can achieve.” The 30 young people who came to the event were so inspired that they went away and started up their own Facebook groups for further discussions and interaction. “It was so great for children of different nationalities to get to know one another; lots of fun was had all round and prayer was recognised as a wonderful form of advocacy. We have also kick-started the process of these young people leading prayer and change movements in their own nations. I can’t wait to see where this leads.”

Viva believes in networking, in working together for children. But, as Chrissie reminds us, “we must also work with them. This weekend has so clearly shown that when children are given an opportunity, they rise to it.” She sums up the weekend with this clear call: “We must give children a voice and then we must listen. I know God is.”

The answer is, we don’t yet know. BUT…What we do know is that before the elections the Ugandan Government launched a National Strategic Plan for providing comprehensive services to orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs). The National Strategic Plan states that the government is not able to meet its mandate for providing for all children and currently only reaches 11% of all vulnerable children with any form of support. So the government has appealed to civil society and to faith-based organisations to work with them in the huge task that lies ahead. The country has been given large grants for improving education and health and Viva hopes to partner and support them in the delivery of this.

Viva believes there is great value in equipping the church as a key partner, through networking, to make a difference in the lives of children at risk across the country, through different denominations as well as grass roots churches.

On a further note, Kampala was supposed to be hearing the results of its mayoral elections today, which could also potentially have a big impact on the children of Uganda, however, they have been cancelled due to “alleged rigging” and “ensuing violence”, with the new date to “be communicated later”. Keep an eye on the Viva blog to see where all this takes us and the children of Uganda….

The Viva Equip People training is currently running in Biratnagar, Butwal and Kathmandu, and Udita is one of 20 church and project staff taking the course in her area. Learning how to help children in the context of their culture, family and background, and understanding how to value and listen to them, were quite new concepts to Udita, and she found that it transformed the way she interacted with children.

She came across Daya during a visit to a community project, and discovered that he had no family to care for him. He was simply drifting, begging and relying on the charity of neighbours, and as he had been living this way for awhile his health was very poor. Udita felt moved by Daya’s situation, and was compelled to respond in a much more personal way than she would have ever considered before. She chose to take him into her own home, giving him good food and proper clothes, and taking him to the hospital to receive proper treatment and medication.

Udita’s decision was not an easy one as many people, including her own parents, were quite opposed to her looking after Daya. But she now has the support of her new husband, who she married just a few months ago, and together they have given Daya a safe home and a new family.

I was a little intimidated before we began, as I was training five men, but they were such a lovely group that after about five minutes I felt completely at home with them. Our time flew by, and their enthusiasm was so encouraging – there seems such a hunger and thirst for quality care in India.

But even on this trip, although the programme is just beginning, I caught a small glimpse of what that might look like here when I spent a fascinating two hours talking to a woman called Sharmla. While Sharmla hasn’t had a chance to do Viva’s Equip training yet, she is involved in our Girl Child initiative helping to mentor young girls in the slum communities of Delhi. She had been working with one girl whose mother was a prostitute, who was really pressurising her daughter to start working with her. They struggled for money, and the girl knew that resigning herself to prostitution would provide much-needed income, yet she was reluctant to end up in her mother’s situation.

Because the Girl Child programme had prepared Sharmla well, she knew how to support and encourage the young girl, helping her to stand up for her rights and fight for a different future. That girl is now in school every day, getting an education that will hopefully prevent her from ending up in the same awful situation as her mother. Other projects in the network are also working together to support the family, and the girl’s mother no longer feels so pressured to use drastic means to bring in money for her family.

This girl’s life has been turned around, and all because Sharmla had the right information and the right skills to help her. Girl Child is focusing on one particular area of need, and Viva Equip will be helping projects working on a variety of issues, but the principle is still the same – transformation is possible when people, and the organisations they belong to, are both willing and able to help children.

I loved my first trip to India, and I hope I get to go back again some day. Not only for the amazing sights, sounds and smells, but to see how Viva Equip Projects is empowering people like Sharmla to bring new hope to their country’s children.

* J from Viva, UK

What are you thankful for?
I am close to safe and clean water now. I am very happy here.

Amos Kirye, aged 11

Over the last year, what have you seen changing here?We have such a good diet and eat well, and they give us more time to rest from our hard classes and we play. They have bought footballs for us also. This is my favourite!

Over the last year, what have you seen changing here?We have proper latrines now, and a [bore] hole with clean water for us. We also can study in buildings now instead of outside, and we each have one chair.

I know I am safe and cared for because of the things people do for me. That shows me I am safe.

Unfortunately, halfway through the training, Oketch was recalled to Somalia for a peace-keeping mission and had to leave the course. However he insisted that the Ugandan Army send someone else to replace him, saying “we must not miss out on this training. It is so vital.” He visited the Viva Equip People centre in Kampala before he left, to talk to staff about how he could use what he learnt even while he was stationed in Somalia. He said that he would ask to be assigned to a children’s department while he was out there, and vowed to “fight for and protect children’s rights while in Somalia and elsewhere on the frontline”.

“I wish they would make it a policy that every Ugandan army officer working with children undergoes this training” Oketch told us. “And when I am leaving Somalia I will definitely be back to finish this course, even if the army does not pay for me I will come! I hope to be ready for the start of training in March, and I am very excited about it.”

Local projects which have undergone the training have seen such a noticeable improvement in the quality of care they offer, that they have now reached capacity and are struggling to take in any more children. “Projects here used to have problems where children would run away and go back to the streets, they were so used to their old way of life” says local Viva Equip co-ordinator Henry Pers Lopez. “But now the care in the projects is so good that the children are no longer running away, and it actually means that the organisations are getting so full!”

Many of the projects in the La Paz network are either schools or transition homes that are preparing children to be re-integrated into their families, fostered or adopted, and so they are a vital help and support to their neighbourhoods. While it is a very positive step that their standards of care have been so tangibly improved, it highlights the need to ensure that as many organisations as possible have the chance to develop the quality of the care they offer.

Henry reports that the network has now begun referring children to government institutions and other organisations outside the network, as member projects simply have no more room: “We always make sure children are going to a place that can give them the best care possible, even when those places are not part of the network. But we know that organisations are stronger when they are part of a team, and when they have been given proper standards. So we are just wanting to do Viva Equip Projects more and more. We are hopeful one day this will not be a problem because every organisation in the country working with children will have done the training!”

** Could you or your school, family or workplace help even one more project to receive this vital training? Check out how you could support Viva Equip Projects

How many of us wish that we could send a message directly to the government? That we could tell them the things we think are important, and highlight what needs to change? Well in a community playground in the heart of El Salvador’s capital city, 400 children let the leaders of their country know exactly what was on their minds.

For this particular Christmas Party our local network partnered with the Ministry of Social Inclusion, and together they developed the idea of allowing the children to send messages back to the wider government. So amid the chaos of games, clowns, face painting and presents, a giant mural was created with hundreds of messages for the country of El Salvador. Every child at the Party was encouraged to write or draw on the mural, which was delivered to the local government offices in the week following the party.

El Salvador is home to more than 7 million people, approximately 36% of which are under the age of 14. Yet despite their youth, this group seem to have a pretty good grasp on the things that could help their country become a better place. Roberto, aged 12, wrote that “we should have no children on the streets” and 9-year old Nancy wrote “let there be no violence and crime”. Nubia, at only 11 years old, was very direct in saying “the President should do good things for the country” and a surprising environmental awareness was shown by Ramos, aged 10, when he wrote “Do not cut down trees, and you will have a better El Salvador. We must look after our country for the future” and illustrated his message with colourful forests and rivers.

So although the party is over, who knows what changes we might see this year, now that the El Salvadorian government have a clearer picture of what a third of their country thinks is important…

In the Manyatta slum, opportunities for children to stand up and be heard by crowds of over 800 people are pretty rare. Yet that’s exactly what 12-year old Gaya got to do at the Viva Christmas Party in his community just a few weeks ago.

Gaya’s church is part of our city-wide network in Kisumu, Kenya, and so when the network decided to hold a Christmas Party he was one of more than 700 children to attend the festivities. The meal they ate together provided a welcome change from the daily fare of maize and beans, the presents they received were, for many, the first toys they had ever owned and the games were enjoyed by attendees of all ages.

In the afternoon all the children and adults gathered together to hear the Christmas message, which Gaya had been chosen to help present. “I spoke for a time of 10 minutes and they were all listening to me!” he told us proudly. “I never had this opportunity to speak to so many people, it made me feel very honoured and happy.”

As a result of the party Gaya is now involved in Viva’s Child Ambassadors programme, which focuses on developing children’s leadership skills and empowering them to play a part in shaping their own futures. He felt so encouraged by his experience at Christmas, and by the network’s faith in him, that he wanted to commit to help other children gain confidence to talk with adults and know they have the right to be heard, and has vowed to “speak up for children everywhere, and help them to do the same thing.”

When our city-wide network in Delhi, India, held a Viva Christmas Party a few weeks ago they gave every project attending the chance to perform. Songs, dances and dramas were played out by more than 100 children for the entertainment of their peers, including 13 children from a project that helps young people with autism and other disabilities.

“For these children it was a totally new experience” says Viva India staff member Gary Kamaal. “Not just that they were invited to perform in front of so many people, but to perform alongside other children and be given equal status – that was so amazing and wonderful to them. You could see in their faces they felt so special, and they really loved doing their act.”

Along with their project staff the children performed a five-minute gymnastics routine set to lively Indian music, involving very daring tumbling and dancing. The routine concluded to enthusiastic applause from the other children and carers, and the enjoyment of the performers was evident in the big smiles they wore throughout the presentation. Gary also told us that the children’s reaction to the performance was a personal highlight for him as it showed “their acceptance of the children with special needs – they did not treat them differently at all.” In fact he was delighted to see that children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds were interacting and enjoying the performances and games together throughout the day.

This was the first time this project had been involved in a Viva Christmas Party, and they were very positive about the experiences it offered their children. And because they are a part of the network, they will be able to work with other local projects to show those children exactly what equal opportunities can mean all year round.

In 2009, alongside 40 other project staff working with children at risk in Mbale, Uganda, Grace spent eight months gaining the key skills needed for effective and compassionate child care. “This course helped me so much” says Grace. “I feel that spiritually I have grown and my heart has been changed. I didn’t know how to handle children at my work place, and I was not doing my work from the bottom of my heart but really just to earn a living. Now I can confidently say that I am committed to seeing the lives of children changed and helping them become better people- all that God intended them to be.”

Viva staff were so impressed with Grace, and the way that she was implementing what she had learnt, that they felt it right to approach her to be one of the trainers for the 2011 course. Beginning in March this year the course is taking place at five centres across Uganda, and 200 new students are expected to enrol. Over the last year seven other particularly successful VEP alumni from Mbale, Gulu and Kampala have also been asked to become trainers for this next course.

The co-ordinator of Viva’s national network in Uganda, Patrick Jumah, feels strongly that continuing this model of trainees becoming trainers will be beneficial on many levels: “These people have gone through the whole course. They are not just specialists in one module or topic, but they know what it is to study all the parts. They are showing to be wonderful mentors to those going through the training now, and an amazing support.”

Another benefit of these students-turned-trainers is that they actually help to alleviate some of the financial pressure of the training. “So many of the people who have done the course and now are trainers are happy to give their time for a much lower cost” Jumah shares. “They have seen the benefit of the training, and they are so motivated to teach others that they do not need to make a lot of money from it. They are so happy to be there and teaching more projects.”

Grace agrees wholeheartedly, saying “It is a privilege now to be passing on this learning. I know that it has not only equipped me with skills and knowledge but it has also transformed my life, and I hope to help others now experience the same thing.”

Just before Christmas I visited a school in Manchay (a district in the desert-like hills above Lima, Peru) that is using all kinds of games, songs and stories to teach children about the value of their bodies. On the day that I was there I arrived just as a class of 10-year olds were finishing off a fairly chaotic and laughter-filled game of ‘Simon says’ (Simón dice in Spanish) and then watched as the teacher proceeded to relate the game to real life.

She explained that just like in the game where sometimes you’re supposed to do what ‘Simon’ tells you, and other times you’re not, it’s the same in life. It’s important to be respectful and obedient to adults, but if a grown-up (or even a peer) asks you to do something wrong or inappropriate then it’s OK not to obey them – in fact you shouldn’t. As an example the teacher then referred to some pictures on the wall that the class had worked on the week before – black and white drawings of girls and boys where the children had been asked to colour in green all the areas that were ok for other people to touch, and in red the areas that were not.


The teacher later told me that there are a lot of young pregnancies in this area of Peru, and sadly a lot of single mothers. So for many children the main male figure in their life is an uncle, a grandfather, or simply a string of their mother’s boyfriends. Because of the level of poverty these broken, mixed-up and extended families often share rooms, sometimes even beds. The opportunities for all kinds of abuse are many and varied. But thanks to Viva’s city-wide network in Manchay, things are beginning to change. The school I visited is just one of several projects and churches that are working together to uncover and prevent sexual, physical and emotional abuse.


Using Viva materials, particularly focussing on a teaching manual produced in partnership with Youth for Christ, the 15 schools and churches in the network have an opportunity to teach kids about how valuable and special they are, and how they should (and should not) be treated by adults. I spoke with several teachers at this school, and also with one of the local pastors, and they were all really encouraged by the progress being made.


One teacher said “We’re so thankful for the Viva materials. Many of the facts I already knew, but this book has shown me how to teach those facts to the children in a way they can really understand. And the children are responding – many of them have actually come forward and confided in me about situations going on at home.” Another said, “I have always known that abuse was going on in this area, but I did not know so many of the children in my own class were affected. It’s awful, but at least now we know we can do something about it.”


The network plays a vital part in dealing with the cases of abuse that come to light as a result of the teaching. While the schools have good links with the government, and tend to focus on trying to prosecute the abusers, the churches have strong links in the community and work closely with the victim and their family. Working together in this way means that the child can be counselled and encouraged, the family can be supported and shown how to prevent further abuse, and the perpetrator can be brought to justice.


Most people have never heard of dusty little Manchay, and few will venture far enough outside of bustling Lima to visit it. But I’m glad I took a trip off the beaten track. I got to see the creativity and dedication that is being put into play to keep children safe and show them that they are loved, and I got to see how people are pulling together to change a whole community. Simon says join in! There’s a lot you can do…


~ B, Viva UK

As Viva’s International Prayer Co-ordinator, I get to travel around to conferences and events worldwide, as well as helping local children get involved in prayer right here in Oxford and throughout England. I’ve recently come back from Sri Lanka, where I was a keynote speaker for a conference on intercessory prayer for Asia. Needless to say it was exciting!


Viva doesn’t have an official network in Sri Lanka, but we’re building relationships with projects and churches around this beautiful island that want to work together to address the enormous needs facing Sri Lankan children in the aftermath of decades of war and ever-present poverty. After my speaking engagement in Colombo I did two days of workshops with children’s workers (and children!) to help the adults learn to involve children in prayer, teaching them to hear God for themselves from a young age.

After my time in Colombo I was whisked up to the northern city of Jaffna by Ministry of Defence plane – as I said, exciting! Jaffna is where the majority of the recent war took place, with Tamil Tiger rebels facing off against government forces. I spent time here in Palaam Children’s Home, which started as a local church’s response to the needs of children in the community who were affected by the war. Now it’s filled with children who were orphaned during the war or by the tsunami. An African saying applies well here: when two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers most. Children are often hit hardest in times of war, as I was reminded in Jaffna.


The war officially ended two years ago, but many children are still suffering the impact of just being born while it went on: thousands of children born during the war have no birth certificates, because their parents were unable to get to government offices to register their births. While this may not sound as dire as losing family members or being physically hurt, it does mean the children have no legal status. They’re not recognised by the government, which means they miss out on school – the one opportunity they have to climb out of poverty. Even worse, many of these unregistered children actually did lose their parents, so they’re now completely destitute.


One girl I met had lost both parents and ended up in a camp for internally displaced people. She had met a family in the camp and attached herself to them. When they left, she tagged along. They weren’t able to give her long-term support, but helped her get out of the horrible camp conditions. As they drove down the road, they saw a signpost to the Palaam Children’s Home and took the chance to make sure this little girl got proper help. Now she’s a permanent member of the Palaam family and is on her way to getting registration and a birth certificate.


In fact, Palaam Children’s Home has its hands full caring for these children and trying to get each orphaned child legally registered. From my years of experience at Viva, I know how desperately they could use the help of other projects and churches in Jaffna that are doing the same work or can offer other support. Right now Viva is trying to get familiar with some projects doing significant work, and sharing about the benefits of working together. We’re also encouraging churches to get involved in caring for children at risk.


It’s amazingly difficult to get anything done at the moment, as the government is clamping down on non-governmental organisations and small projects have many levels of bureaucracy to climb through. Aside from that, many churches are suspicious of reaching out and working together. Years of violence and mistrust can undermine people’s faith in one another, and the church needs to overcome this obstacle before it can really set about helping Sri Lankan children.


But we’ve seen churches do it before, and I know God is big enough to break down human barriers! We’re definitely watching and praying with anticipation for this hurting but amazing country.




~ C, International Prayer Co-ordinator, UK

In Nepal, though, Viva Christmas Parties haven’t just helped get children connected with projects – they’ve helped make it possible for projects to connect with one another. As in many other places around the world, Nepalese organisations that help children at risk have traditionally tended to keep to themselves. Opening up your management, fundraising and resources to other projects can be a terrifying task. Our partner network CarNet Nepal discovered that Viva Christmas Parties are a great way to develop the trust and rapport between projects that are necessary to form a network.

How does a Christmas party do all that? Projects and churches that want to form networks find it hard to start by tackling huge issues like child homelessness or trafficking, although these are issues that affect Nepalese children.  So they start by working together on something small that builds the confidence and competence to take on the big things later! Viva Christmas Parties have helped Nepalese projects focus on a goal – a party – that is easily achieved and makes big issues seem smaller. Have you ever watched a baby learn to walk? He probably didn’t try to take on a flight of stairs first, did he?

Viva Christmas Parties can also help Viva get a feel for what internal and external issues face a group of projects, so that we can provide the best support and advice for them as they grow into a network.

Although Viva Christmas Parties weren’t the only thing that brought the members of CarNet Nepal together, they were a big help (and of course a giant joy to all the children who attended!). In the end it’s the determination of individual people and projects that really makes a network pull together and survive through the many difficulties related to caring for children at risk. Christmas Parties are a fantastic way to show these projects what acting as a network feels like, and to help them reach out to local children at an early stage to see what needs exist in their neighbourhoods.

Now Christmas Parties are a yearly event in the CarNet Nepal projects! Do you remember what you were doing on December 5th? Well in the south eastern region of Nepal, 500 children were attending parties in Biratnagar and Jhapa. On December 10th, 300 children partied in Birgunj, in the central border district from where many children are trafficked to India, and 750 others celebrated in Nuwakot, Kanchhanpur and Butwal. On December 12, 1,200 children attended a giant Christmas Party in the capital, Kathmandu!

Across Nepal this month, that’s 2,750 vulnerable children – some who live on the streets, others who have been rescued from abuse or trafficking, and others who just come from poor families – having a great time while being introduced to projects and networks that can help them grow into healthy adults by working together to provide for their needs. Party on, Nepal!


Want to help by throwing a party of your own or by giving an alternative gift? Go to www.viva.org/christmasParties/.

This afternoon I stood in front of a lovely red brick house, built at the bottom of a deep green valley surrounded by awesome mountains and framed against a clear blue sky. The handwritten sign above the door of the house read ‘Corazon Grande’ (big heart) and it was one of the most tranquil and beautiful places I’ve seen on this trip. Yet the stories of the girls who currently live in the house are almost the complete opposite.

A member of Viva’s Cochabamba network, Corazon Grande cares for 14 girls between the ages of 6 months and 15 years. Some of the girls are orphans, others were simply abandoned by their families, and a sadly high number ran away after suffering sexual or physical abuse in their own homes. Corazon Grande offers the girls a safe place to live, nutritious meals, healthcare, basic education and regular counselling to try and help them work through their difficult experiences.


A few months ago about 8 of the girls took part in a national Viva campaign – Cero Tolerancia al Sexual Abuso Infantil (no tolerance of child sexual abuse) – joining with thousands of other children across Bolivia. Carla, the director of the home, said she noticed a difference in the girls even while the campaign was still going on, telling me that they were “so confident and happy, and more strong – just being part of this big thing that says ‘you matter, you are important, and there are people who will fight to protect you’.” Yet she would never have predicted what the end of the campaign would bring out.


Two of the girls staying at Corazon Grande, girls that had so far been very quiet and unresponsive in the counselling sessions, came to Carla and told her that the director of the school they were at had been sexually abusing them. They told Carla that it had been happening for a while, but they were too scared to say anything. But after the campaign they realised that other adults were saying that it was not ok, and that there were people who would stick up for them and help them if they told someone.

Now Corazon Grande is working with both the network and the local government to make sure the girls are helped and kept safe and that the head of the school is properly dealt with. The government departments for Education and for the Protection of Children are both involved, and the network members have been supporting and praying for the Corazon Grande staff as they help the girls deal with the trauma of what they experienced. Carla also told me that Viva and the network were a great help when she needed to find another school for the girls, as obviously they had to be moved immediately, and the contacts of the network made it easy to place the girls in a new class.


Although much of what I saw and heard today provided a new experience, albeit quite a sad and challenging one, there was one part of it that was reassuringly familiar. I saw, as I always see when I travel with my job, how real people’s lives are being changed by the power of working together. Those two girls’ lives are already showing changes, and I have faith that they will continue to heal and grow, and it took the combined efforts of many different people to bring that about. So yes I really enjoyed the taste of alpaca, yes the many hostels have been entertaining and yes I’ve got some incredible photos of the scenery. But really what I’m bringing back with me is yet more exciting, humbling and inspiring proof that together we really can do more for the struggling children of this world.

~ B from Viva International Office

What better way to get people, projects and churches to work together than by throwing a giant party!  Every year thousands of children across Africa, Asia and Latin America get to celebrate Christmas because hundreds of projects work together to throw them parties, with Viva’s coordination and support. 

At a Viva Christmas Party each child eats a local version of Christmas dinner, receives a present and is treated to a great day out.  Many of the countries we work in have warm Christmases, so parties in the past have featured visits to waterslides, local beaches or theme parks.  Can you imagine the look on her face when the little girl growing up in a slum takes her first ever trip down a waterslide?

These parties aren’t just about one day of fun and friends, though.  The most important element of Viva Christmas Parties is connecting children to local projects that can provide them with education, food, health care and love for years to come.  What starts with a Christmas Party ends up being a brighter life.  (And isn’t that what Christmas is all about?)

8-year-old Anil went to a Viva Christmas Party in Bangalore last year.  He remembers: “There were lots of things that made me happy on that Christmas Party day like dancing, singing Christmas songs, receiving gifts, painting our faces for the mime and participating in the acting on stage.  It was my first time to do all these things!“

Gloria had been living on the streets of Harare for a while when she heard about local Viva Christmas Parties.  She knew right away that she wanted to help out at all the parties… and she did!  At the parties, Gloria met other children and teenagers from local communities and as a result of talking with them, she decided to return home to her family.

Get involved – make this Christmas merry and bright for a child at risk.  Go to www.viva.org/ChristmasParties/ for ideas.

Viva interviews Rogers Mbaziira, who works with our city-wide network CRANE in Kampala, Uganda. Part of Rogers’ job is to work with a group of network members – churches, homes for abandoned babies and other projects – that are committed to putting abandoned babies into local families. (Learn more about this group, called Families For Children.) That means lots of networking between projects and churches and families, with some interesting results. Go ahead, listen in…

Veata’s family live in a village outside Phnom Penh. She’s 15 now, but she’s been working since she was 11. Veata, her mother, and her siblings work as trash collectors to earn money – three siblings work collecting trash while the other three attend school, and then they swap. Veata’s father is a construction worker.

Do you want to volunteer with Viva? Visit www.viva.org/GetInvolved/

Roads in Kampala can be difficult even for grown-up pedestrians to navigate, especially in poorer areas where most children at risk live.  Just crossing the street can be a life-threatening activity for a child in these neighbourhoods!  So a few projects put their heads together and decided to make their neighbourhood safer for the children in their care and those living in the area.  They painted a zebra crossing.

Donning safety vests, these children took turns painting the stripes of the crossing and handing out lollipops and leaflets – taking advantage of the traffic caused by their work to teach passing drivers and pedestrians about child rights and child protection.  

This was a great way for children to make new friends, learn to advocate for themselves, and take responsibility for the safety of their neighbourhood.  We’re hoping to bring more zebra crossings to other neighbourhoods throughout the city!

Take a look at the rest of the pictures on Viva’s Facebook page.

So we were very pleased to hear that on Friday Pakistan did accept India’s offer of aid, despite the history of conflict between the nations, and we hope the money will be put to use to directly benefit flood victims, especially those most vulnerable – the children. Viva is continuing to support the amazing ongoing work of the local projects and churches that make up our networks in Pakistan and India, as well as that of our international partners working to bring relief to those who have lost everything in the floods.

We’ve all heard about the devastating floods that have ravaged Pakistan this month. You may not have heard that many parts of northern India have been stricken by floods too, with hundreds killed (including 18 young children who were killed when their school collapsed under heavy rains yesterday in Dehradun).

3.5 million children are estimated to be at risk of contracting water-borne diseases in Pakistan because of the floods. Their parents have lost their livelihoods; their homes have been washed away; and their friends or family members may have been killed. India has offered $5 million (about £3.2 million) in aid money to Pakistan, but because of longstanding political and military clashes and a deep mistrust of its giant neighbour, the government of Pakistan has not yet accepted and is still considering the offer.

Some have complained that India’s offer of aid was shamefully delayed (just last Friday), and that the amount is somewhat paltry given the scale of the damage. Although perhaps given the climate of mistrust and ongoing conflict, as well as India’s own natural disasters, the timing and size of India’s offer isn’t really surprising.

So the question is this – does a government, whose employees and ministers are largely safe in flood-free zones, have the right to pick and choose what aid it will receive when millions of children’s lives are at stake? Now I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t know all the intricacies of government relations. But I do know that we need to pray that Pakistan will accept the aid and put it to good use right away. Some countries will just never get along. But it would be terrible if that led to a missed opportunity to bring desperately needed aid to children at huge physical risk. As is so often the case, disagreements between governments are resulting in a direct impact on vulnerable children.

The conflict between India and Pakistan goes back to 1947 when the Indian subcontinent endured the trauma of being partitioned into two states: one mainly Hindu, and one a homeland for Indian Muslims. In the rush to move from India to Pakistan (or the other way) 12 million people were forcibly uprooted, many of them killed. Since then the two countries have fought three major wars, and officials on both sides continue to treat one another with suspicion.

Please pray for the softening of the hearts of both India and Pakistan’s governing officials. This could be a chance for India and Pakistan to start rebuilding their relationship. In fact, it has many parallels to aid given between Turkey and Greece – two countries that traditionally aren’t friends – when earthquakes struck both countries in the summer of 1999. Both governments generously extended aid to the citizens of the other, and both countries were humble enough to accept it.

Viva has six thriving networks across India that help thousands of the country’s most vulnerable children. With the help of local churches and the cooperation of Indian authorities, we’ve been able to start challenging Indian culture to be more mindful of children’s rights and to place higher value on girls in particular. We have also been working to further develop our network of Christian projects and churches in Pakistan to respond to the ongoing needs of children. In the aftermath of the flooding, these agencies will be able to provide the care, physical and emotional support, and medical attention many of the young victims will need.

Providing that ongoing care, long after media attention and flood waters subside, will require real partnership, real relationship. So let’s pray that these two governments can put aside their historical differences and become more than just neighbours. Let’s pray that they will actually work together to change the situations of the vulnerable children within their countries.

For more information on what we are doing across Asia see http://www.viva.org/asia.aspx

Recently 45 children from Christian projects working in these slums came together for a one-day workshop called “Why should we have rights?” In areas like Kolkata’s overpopulated slums, the needs of children often get overlooked or pushed aside for more pressing matters like feeding the family or finding a proper latrine (normally impossible). But that doesn’t mean these children’s rights aren’t just as important of those of kids in the developed world, or in the richer parts of Kolkata. And that’s just what they learned.

Viva’s city-wide network in Kolkata designed the workshop to bring children from many different projects to meet new friends, and together come up with new ideas on how to advocate for child rights to the adults in their community. We don’t just want adults running the show in our networks – though of course properly trained adults are essential to running a good project, church or network! Viva believes the ones with the most at stake, the children, have ideas and valuable opinions that need to be heard too.

The first activity was a “theatre of the oppressed”, a doleful name for a doleful activity. The children got into groups and composed skits to demonstrate in a dramatic sense the way children are oppressed or denied their rights in the slums. Seeing their peers act out misery that’s a daily occurrence for some of these children or their friends helped to solidify their desire to improve life in Kolkata’s slums.

It was important for us to make sure the children knew the difference between rights and desires. While every child has the right to be fed, they don’t have the right to eat ice cream every day! This sparked some interesting and thoughtful discussions about the limits of rights, a topic that’s often ignored when children’s rights are the topic of conversation.

After this the children watched a film about a slum child living in India’s largest city and financial capital, called “Salaam Mumbai”. We had prepared a range of discussion topics on this issue too, but they were hardly necessary. Most of our attendees could identify with the main character – the difficulties of living in run-down houses with no running water or sanitation, avoiding street crime, dealing with discrimination, and watching their parents try desperately to come up with money to feed them (if they have parents at all) aren’t strange experiences for these kids.

The afternoon easily rolled on into a session on the issues facing all the areas where our delegates came from. Children living in Kolkata’s slums regularly brave everything from streets filthy with excrement, to harsh forms of sexual discrimination, to being kept out of school to beg – on a daily basis. Obstacles to proper human development differ based on the slum you live in. Some slums have more problems with disease; others are rife with brothels and the dangers of trafficking; others are more likely to see children sucked into forced labour on the streets as beggars and in the dumps as rag-pickers. Having the children talk about these things is a great way to generate ideas about how to stay safe from them, or even overcome them completely!

In the end, the experience was so helpful that the children took the initiative to form an ongoing group, which they named Care Youth Group. They’re planning to meet every three months to hatch plans to better their communities, advocate among adults and community leaders for the rights they learned about, and improve the situations in the projects they represent. Just like in Uganda and Bolivia, Viva’s busy harnessing the power of children using their creative geniuses together, in order to permanently change their neighbourhoods!

One of the best things about this workshop was that it didn’t just help the kids make new friends and come up with ideas. It also gave them the confidence to stand up for themselves in a positive and constructive way, something they don’t easily learn in the slum environment. I can’t wait to see what they come up when they have their first three-month meeting.

~ Steven, Viva India Network Co-ordinator, Kolkata

Learn more about child advocacy at www.viva.org/advocates

Viva believes a child-friendly church is one that treats children as an integral part of its congregation, and where children are invited and encouraged to worship and serve just the same as adults (but with a child-friendly twist).  Programmes like Sunday school are great for teaching children about God, but Sunday school can’t be the only thing a church offers its children.

We also believe that in order for a church to be child-friendly, it needs to be safe for children of all ages.  That means the buildings themselves need to be made safe, and also that churches need to have and implement child protection policies, and train staff to care for and protect children.

Churches have a responsibility not only to care for the children who worship in their buildings, but also for the children who live and play in their neighbourhoods.  This could look like after-school programmes for local kids with working parents, or a volunteer-run kitchen for children whose parents can’t afford to provide them with breakfast (like our feeding centres in Costa Rica).

So… do you still rate your church child-friendly?  Although a Viva Child-Friendly Church is usually found in Africa, churches in the developed world have a duty to be child-friendly too.  Western Christians can’t fall prey to complacently thinking their church is child-friendly just because it offeres programmes for children.  Every grown-up member of a church congregation needs to be vigilant in ensuring their church is taking care of its children and including them in all of the best ways.

If you have ideas for making churches child-friendly, or examples of how your church loves its children, please let us know on our Facebook page.

Viva’s city-wide networks throughout the country provide the platform for these little leaders to get together and talk about successes, plan out strategies and events, and learn from one another – at neighbourhood, city and national levels.

The most recent meeting was one of the national ones. Viva arranged for 61 child ambassadors, between the ages of 10 and 16, from projects all over the country to meet so they could motivate and encourage one another and strengthen the role of children in their cities. These leaders represent the foster homes, orphanages, street children outreach ministries, and other organisations that care for them; they were elected by their peers on the basis of their personal gifts and leadership skills. Their mission was to plan the national strategy for the next five years. This is what they came up with:

September 2010-2011: Action against child abuse
September 2011-2012: Campaign against child labour exploitation
September 2012-2013: Anti-abortion campaign
September 2013-2014: Child abandonment awareness campaign
September 2014-2015: Action against child trafficking

Sound a bit heavy for a bunch of children? They think so too, and that’s why they’re fighting so hard to end these issues that many Bolivian children deal with every day. Children can – and should be – key players in ending violations of their rights. 

They’ll continue to use the tactics they’ve tried and proven over the last six years –thousands of vulnerable children marching through the city streets, holding huge prayer rallies, and broadcasting their message through media, churches and schools. They will doubtless come up with new ways of pressuring Bolivia’s adults, too!

The weekend was filled with planning sessions, leadership workshops, lectures and devotions. The child ambassadors were able to learn from one another of different issues that are challenging children around Bolivia. But it’s not just good for them – “Our intention is to give training and education to these children leaders so they can also reach other children, keep them informed and motivated to make positive changes,” says the network office.

Amanda, the ambassador representing one of the projects in Oruro, said of the weekend, “The devotional time was very good, it made us think and motivated us to do more things, because we can do everything through Christ who strengthens us! In the workshops we talked about good treatment issues. In this meeting we exchanged ideas to make things more interesting and also it helped us to know each other more.” The ambassadors discussed how they could use images to educate and inform their neighbourhoods – so Bolivians should be on the lookout for giant colourful Child Advocates posters popping up around the country!

It wasn’t all hard work though. Our child advocates also had a talent show, performing songs, comedy acts, dances and dramas for one another and generally behaving like children … something vulnerable kids in Bolivia don’t always get the chance to do. Following that they watched a great cinematographic masterpiece: ‘Karate Kid 4’!

The projects, children, networks, communities and families surrounding these intrepid children are waiting to see what new and creative ways they’ll come up with to protect the rights of children. We at Viva are so proud to see these children, so undervalued by their society, coming together to change their whole culture.

Viva Bolivia 

Learn more about Child Advocates at www.viva.org/advocates

But the Ugandan church, just like everywhere around the world, suffers from contrasts in faith, actions and beliefs. What do you see when you picture an African church? Maybe a building without walls or with a thatched roof … maybe a bunch of colourfully dressed people singing under a tree, raising their hands and swaying with African enthusiasm. The reality is that African churches are unique in their own way, but also very similar to churches everywhere else.

My church in Kampala is very family-oriented. Through the week we have activities for all sorts of different groups: children, students, support for people with HIV. Unlike back home in the West, people at my church here actually hang out at church during the week. It’s just a fun place to be, it’s safe and it’s a bright social scene. That would be hard to find in the UK! People here go to church regularly – something that’s been lost to the last few generations in the West. I’m always excited to see that bit of culture alive and well in Africa.

Tragically, the same old problems that have plagued the Western church for hundreds of years also exist here – but with a special African flair. Pastors in Uganda get a lot of respect, which opens up a door for those who are corrupt to use their office to make money or influence people in ungodly ways.

In some cases, pastors are notorious for demanding money before they’ll pray for someone. Imagine being a child in an impoverished family, your mother has AIDS, you invite your local pastor to pray for your sick mother, and before he starts he asks for money you don’t have! What image would that give you of God?

Another widespread practice in many churches is ‘demon casting’. This is a reverberation of the traditional witch doctor culture here, that’s been grafted into the church. In my first home here I woke up in the middle of the night to chanting and screaming: a midnight ‘church’ service where demons were being cast out! I was scared and I’m grown up … I can’t imagine being a child and seeing these things go on in my church.

Of course the Ugandan church can’t be summed up by me, and it definitely can’t be summed up in a blog post. But I’m in a special position to see how churches here can be made more child-friendly.

Lots of churches don’t have programmes for children, and they’re just expected to sit through the service. A Sunday school programme, which we take for granted back home, would be a great idea for the kids.

Ugandan churches really do want to help children at risk. But this is often seen as an expenditure that they simply can’t afford. There are easy ways churches can reach out to children in their communities around here though, like having after school clubs or Bible study groups, or a children’s prayer ministry. Their human capital is the best thing they’ve got going, and they need to use it!

I’m so happy Viva is in a special position to help these churches reach their full potential of reaching out to children. We’ve been able to train church leaders and workers in child protection, and our networks are always coming up with ideas and new ways of mobilising congregations to help kids in their communities. It’s up to the churches themselves to take the initiative and use what Viva’s given them to change their entire community.

The church is the best placed organisation in the whole world to help millions of children at risk. I’m privileged to be working for Viva as it helps to support churches across the continent to do just that. Thanks to our unique networks of projects, churches and NGOs across Africa we can help every church become a Child Friendly Church.

~ F. in Kampala

Visit www.viva.org/what to find out more about how we help children at risk in Uganda and around the world. 

Follow us on Facebook! 

6% of our readers thought child care workers need more money,

68% thought they need better training,

and 25% of you thought they need a vacation.

You’re all right.  Although it sounds materialistic to say child care workers need more money, they certainly do!  Not only for themselves, but simply to run the projects properly.  Many of the projects Viva works with are just generous people who open their homes to orphans, or give their time to care for disabled children.  They try to stretch their income to cover the costs and elicit donations from others in their community, but funds are usually hard to come by.

Although people caring for children have the best intentions, they are often propelled by passion and not by proper training.  Training can teach them how to protect children’s rights and person, detect signs of abuse, create an environment that encourages children to voice their opinions, and provide counselling for children who need it.

A vacation is something else these wonderful people desperately need!  Many of the thousands of people who devote their lives to caring for the children around them are so busy doing just that, that they never take time for themselves.  Work starts with making breakfast before the children wake up, and ends when the last one has gone to bed.  Workers often burn out and are tempted to give up altogether.

That’s why Viva Equip People is such a blessing – it addresses these three great needs and helps workers overcome them.  Through this course child care workers in developing countries receive training they need to properly care for children, learn how to run a financially accountable project and raise funds for themselves, and even have the chance to go on a spiritual retreat to gather their strength and renew their focus.  The workers benefit, the children benefit, and everything is run more efficiently.  Through Viva Equip People project workers are also able to meet people from other projects in their area, giving them important new contacts who can support them by sharing financial resources, encouraging them, and sharing knowledge.

To learn more about Viva Equip People go to www.viva.org/QualityCare/

As a Network Consultant for Viva India, one of the best parts of my job is visiting the networks Viva works with and seeing what all the projects are doing. Recently I was on a whirlwind tour of India, travelling from Bangalore in the south to Vijayawada in the southeast, and then all the way up to Dehradun in the Himalayas, and finally back to Delhi where I work. It helped me to remember what a huge, diverse and beautiful country India is … but also how much work there is to be done.

I’d like to share some good news from Dehradun. This is one of India’s oldest cities and is home to half a million people today. It’s snuggled between the feet of the Himalayas and the vast plains of northern India, surrounded by the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. Imagine coming from the hot Indian plains and arriving in a place surrounded by forests, mountains and cool rivers! Or, if you like wildlife, you could look around for tigers, snow leopards, cheetahs, or Himalayan bears.

Despite its idyllic setting, Dehradun has its share of slums and poverty. The people living in the slums are largely migrants who have had to resort to begging and rag-picking, and who can rarely allow themselves the luxury of thinking about an education for their children. As a result, about 50% of the slum children never attend school, and those who do typically drop out or else fare badly in their classes.

Part of the problem is that the children have to go out and beg or look for scraps, to supplement their parents’ income. Those who aren’t sent out to work are kept in to work in a different way, taking care of the house or their younger brothers and sisters. Often girls are given the very dangerous task of going into the hills, which are inhabited by all the exotic animals I mentioned before, to collect firewood. Whatever they’re up to, the children are certainly not in school.

That’s why our network of projects in Dehradun has started an evening tutoring programme in the slums. It started up in June, and it already has 100 students! Rather, they have 100 students – there are actually four different tutoring classrooms, one in each of Dehradun’s four slum districts. Each classroom has a small library, and classes are held for two hours every weekday evening. We hold them late in the day so that any child can come – whether they’ve been at school during the day and need help with their homework (hard to get from often uneducated parents), or whether they’ve spent the day looking for scraps around town.

Running these classes together has had a great effect not just on the children attending, but also on the projects running them. The network is being strengthened by this process of working together so that now individual projects are learning more about one another, and how they can both support and be helped by others working in their community.

I met up with the leaders of these classrooms when I was in Dehradun. It was so uplifting to hear their stories – how against all the odds they’ve been able to establish not just one but four classrooms throughout the city, assemble a committee of locals to supervise the teachers and the students, and pull together enough material for four libraries … all with the budgets and time constraints of churches and orphanages.

There are 20 million children in India who are not in school. The problem is much bigger than just Dehradun. Wherever there’s poverty or sexual discrimination, there are children kept home to work, or sent into the cities to beg, or forced into bonded labour. Against such a problem, I feel terribly small! But it’s not just me working against this current. There are thousands of people and projects in India, big and small, working to bring children a better future. How much more can we do if we come together? We can share resources, receive training together, share information, and create rules and best practices to operate on. More children would receive better help, where and when they needed it.

Living in India myself and seeing the scope of the problem firsthand, I know that the only way the problem will ever be solved is through the united efforts of those who care about children. That’s why Viva’s city-wide networks of projects and churches are the perfect way to bring help and love to children at risk. As for these Dehradun tutoring classes, the best part is not just that the children are getting some education. It’s that they’re being shown, in a very practical way, that they have value – they are valuable enough for many adults to give up their time and energy to educate and care for them. With that knowledge, they’re being encouraged not just to accept what life has given them, but to strive for great things. What better education is there than that?

~ Steven Christian, Network Co-ordinator, Viva India

Interested in how city-wide networks are brought together? Visit http://www.viva.org/City-wide/

Find out how the Asha Forum is improving the lives of India’s children at http://www.viva.org/Asha/

On the surface, the goal of Vacation Camp was to warm up the local children during the week’s winter holiday, and give them something to do. In the impoverished neighbourhoods where our network of projects and churches operate, many homes don’t have heating. Even if they did, the parents can’t afford enough fuel to keep the house warm all day. On top of that, parents have to work every day just to feed and house their children, and paying for day care is out of the question. Hundreds of children spend their holidays sitting in a freezing house, bored, unable to go out because the streets are so dangerous.

This goal we did achieve! As you may have read, it was a week of sports training, football games, entertainment, arts and crafts, dancing, and tasty hot snacks. The kids had a blast, their parents didn’t have to worry about them, and everyone made new friends.

Our underlying mission was to get these vulnerable children in touch with members of our network. This year the projects, churches and organisations that make up Viva’s Paraguay network are making a concerted effort to reach all the children in the neighbourhoods where we work. We can offer so much help, with many projects specialising in different things like caring for street children, specialised daycare for children of single parents making job opportunities possible, offering quality education for children who would otherwise not have the chance, providing care for kids and adults with HIV/AIDS, and offering meals and places to sleep for children who flee abusive homes. But how can we help them if they don’t know who we are?

Vacation Camp was the perfect way to get to know the kids, to build their trust and show them that when they have problems they can turn to us instead of to drugs or the streets. Now more than 275 children under 12 and 40 teenagers have had a great time with us for a week; what better way is there to build relationships? It was also an opportunity for the projects and churches to work on their co-operation skills. The stronger a network is, the more good it can do for the children in its community. With better knowledge of what the other members do, each project or church can easily help a child find services to meet his or her needs.

Excitingly, we had kids from as far away as Canada get involved in Vacation Camps. 12-year-old Natalie visited Paraguay with her family two years ago and decided to spring to action to help the disadvantaged children she met here – “It really got me excited that I could help out and make this world poverty free!” Teaming up with a friend she wrote poems that inspired her classmates to join the cause, and together they made and sold jewellery, cards and bags in their school. By the end of the year, after much hard work and entrepreneurship, they’d raised $400 to send to Vacation Camps! “It’s all worth it to know that people have smiles on their faces because of us,” exclaims Natalie. And smiles there certainly were – and will be for a long time, thanks to the relationships her generous donation has helped us form with Asuncion’s most vulnerable children.

One volunteer, a 14 year old boy from the children’s home, was the first to sign up as a volunteer for last year’s Viva Christmas Party. This year once again he was first in line to volunteer at Vacation Camp. He received every word of the volunteer training our Protection Programme staff offered. He arrived every day with fresh energy and excitement, a tremendous help and encouragement to the Sports Trainers, thanking staff with a big hug and saying, “I have grown so much inside, I will never forget this, we will continue with this!” And this is a boy who comes from a situation of abuse and neglect himself. This story is similar to many more, both from teenaged kids from the care home, the HIV centre, the local churches. They bonded and had so much fun together, in doing activities with the younger kids! Many were touched by the difficult lives these children live, and yet how they could play and laugh so freely during this week.

Sometimes adults despair that the next generation is going awry, spending all its time online and its money on celebrity magazines. But what we’ve seen is dozens of amazing teenagers excited to get involved in improving their community, forgetting their own problems for a while; and a school-full of teenagers half the world away excited about giving nearly 300 kids a good time and new hope for the future.

~ Anja, Network Director for Viva in Paraguay

Do you have good fundraising ideas? Want to get involved? Visit www.viva.org/GetInvolved to learn more.

It’s official… educating Indian women is the best way to release them from the dangers and discrimination that accompany their low status.  At least, that’s the popular choice of our readers:

93% voted for educating women,

7% thought creating quotas in the workplace would raise their status,

And none of our clever readers thought banning the dowry would do much at all.

You’re right.  The dowry – a bride price, paid by the bride’s family to the groom or his parents, often extracted through blackmail just before the wedding – has been banned in India for years.  But it’s still a widespread practice, entrenching the societal belief that girls are just burdens to be born (or killed before birth).  Read our blog on the topic for more information.  The problem is so bad that more than 5000 women are killed by their husbands or in-laws every year, because the bride’s family can no longer afford to pay them off.
But what about creating quotas in the workplace or in schools?  While this might be a valuable step, it’s not as fundamental as educating girls from the start … because who will fill the quotas if girls aren’t educated?  In fact, many Indian women are very highly educated and successful.  India has even had a female prime minister and many prominent female politicians.  As it stands, these women are often from well-to-do families who were able to afford to educate all their children, and the girls who truly need extra support are left without it.

The girls who need the most help (and get the least) are, as always, those from poor families who often have to choose which of their children to send to school, which ones to feed, and even which ones to keep alive at birth.  Sadly, sons are almost always chosen simply because they’re seen as the better investment.  Read more from Viva India’s topical network director, to hear about her experiences growing up through this discrimination and pushing for her own education.

Educating Indian girls not only gives them greater job opportunities, it also potentially increases the health of their future families, generates more wealth, and gives them the courage and confidence to stand up for themselves against discrimination.  Let’s see more of this, in addition to tougher action against dowry-related crimes and more opportunities created for women in the workplace.

Visit www.viva.org/girlchild to find out how we’re helping change India’s ideas about girls.

Viva Equip People is a big deal, especially here in Nepal where many children are at risk, and often little value is given to them. The people we’re equipping are working with children at risk in local projects or churches, and are amazingly compassionate and hard-working. But their work with children can be limited because they have very few opportunities to develop themselves and improve their work.

The course involves bringing together a group of project workers for training in the essential attitudes and skills of working with children: things like understanding children’s rights and needs, and skills in listening to children. They also learn how to best develop their work with children who suffer from such things as a lack of education, or being in forced labour.

Often these workers have great intentions and passionate hearts, but no background knowledge about protecting and helping children. And Nepalese children certainly need help and protection. On a daily basis there are many – often despite the best efforts of parents, friends and family – who face being trafficked into India as sex workers, forced labourers and domestic workers in unfriendly homes where they’re especially vulnerable to abuse. In their own homes and villages they may be threatened by physical and sexual abuse, which in turn leads to homelessness as they take to the streets to flee the violence. Many of them have parents but never see them because they’ve left to find work; others lost their parents in the recent Maoist insurgency. And Nepalese girls face discrimination and hardship every day because of their gender.

Thanks in part to the development of our partner CarNetNepal, and the programme Viva Equip People, Christian child care workers in Nepal are learning how to help the children around them and urgently trying to reach more. Through the Nepal network a Parentless Children Working Group has been formed – these people advocate with local churches to get to work caring for children.

One inspirational leader is Sharmila Ghimire. Sharmila is married to CarNetNepal co-ordinator Dhan Raj. She runs a programme for street boys. Her approach to rescuing and rehabilitating the boys was “all heart”, she said to me – she had great intentions, but didn’t quite know how to connect with the boys. After she completed a VEP course, Sharmila could communicate better with children and is much better able to offer them personal counselling. This has meant more success getting the boys reintegrated with their own families, since she can help them talk through their problems and address deep family issues.

A recent VEP graduate from the town of Butwal, Pastor Sunil, had his view of children changed completely by the course. Before the course he focused his energy entirely on the adults of his congregation and didn’t think children were useful members of the church. He only attended Viva Equip People because he thought it might help him learn something new about working with children in the congregation. But his whole mindset was so changed by what he learned – that children are integral members of the church and have valuable opinions – that he not only made the children’s ministry in his church more effective, but started a new ministry to reach out to the vulnerable children in his community!

The Viva Equip People course takes a year, so graduation is a big event. I travelled with network leaders and trainers from Kathmandu on an eight hour bus-ride (in business suits!), and then we slept in a local church before joining the graduation ceremony. Our graduates proudly wore their gowns and showed off their certificates, and even composed a song about caring for children and protecting children’s rights. Another exciting thing was that there were nine men and nine women graduating … in Nepal, professional groups are usually skewed towards only including men.

While I was in Nepal I had the chance to meet many of the frontline workers from the network there. One of them was Pastor Surya, one of the Viva Equip People graduates. Surya received support to start a programme in his community to protect children at risk. VEP helped him realise that children have special requirements and need extra protection, and he was bold enough to take his church in a completely new direction by acting on it.

Viva Equip People is having such great results that the Nepal network has a vision for it: they want every Christian child care worker in the country to go through VEP training! This little Christian community in the mainly Hindu country is having an impact beyond its numbers. Through courses like Viva Equip People they’ve learned that the church – them! – can succeed in its responsibility to demonstrate what family should look like to the people of Nepal. That means welcoming everyone, standing up for the rights of women and children, and taking care of the poor and oppressed. These 18 VEP graduates are going out into Nepalese communities to achieve that goal.

I spent the other part of my trip checking up on the progress of the Daughter project in southern Nepal. Keep an eye out for another post from me on some of the things that are happening through Daughter.

~ Ian, Viva Asia Co-Ordinator

Learn more about Viva Equip People at http://www.viva.org/QualityCare/

It all started last Christmas when Red Viva Paraguay (‘Red’ means ‘network’ in Spanish) threw Viva Christmas Parties for almost 1,500 children in several central neighbourhoods of Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital city. These Christmas Parties are a great way to introduce kids to projects that want to help them, and for projects in our Paraguay network to get used to working together. Throwing Christmas Parties for hundreds of vulnerable kids takes a lot of teamwork!

The parties were such a success that the participating projects decided to keep holding community outreach activities throughout the year, so that we can get to know the children of our neighbourhoods and build up strong relationships with them. That way when they have problems at home or need other kinds of help, they’ll trust us to help them instead of turning to the streets or to drugs.

Viva’s World Weekend of Prayer back in June really helped us kick things off, as more projects and churches wanted to see continued outreach. So we formed a working group to come up with strategies to reach vulnerable children. The first proposal was for Vacation Camp, and we went for it. With the help of a PE teacher who offered to come from Germany and do the sports training, and a group of young girls in Canada who helped us raise funds for the project, we were all ready to go!

There are five local projects (members of Red Viva Paraguay) and seven actively supporting local churches working together to bring Vacation Camp to the kids of Asuncion. We started by meeting every week to co-ordinate the event and, despite little bumps along the way, the burden of work – and fundraising – was shared among everyone. If you’ve ever tried working with a group of people you’ll know that’s hard to do! Viva also provided training for all the volunteers who would run Vacation Camp. Especially important is teaching these volunteers how to identify signs of abuse that children might show, so that we can get help for them immediately.

One of the most exciting things for me has been seeing teenagers from two of the projects, a care home for children and youth and a day centre for kids affected by HIV/AIDS, involved in Vacation Camp. If you know teenagers, you know they often want to do their own thing. But we have more than 30 amazing teenagers helping as volunteers with the younger kids! They have a leading role in organising the events, and also they’re on the front line, interacting with the kids. Even more importantly, these teenagers attended Viva’s training and learned to look out for abuse … a skill they’ll be able to use whenever they meet new friends in their neighbourhoods.

Unfortunately we had a bout of cold weather this week – it’s winter here in beautiful South America – so not as many kids came out on Monday as we were hoping for. Vacation Camp was originally supposed to be held in a park in central Asuncion, but we were able to move quickly into a sports hall on the property of a children’s home – a member of Red Viva Paraguay, of course! Working together as a network has made all the difference in bringing an exciting camp to these vulnerable kids.

On Monday and Tuesday our volunteers braved the cold to pull off a variety of activities designed to help kids warm up. Children from age six right through to teenagers had sports training, played football, learned dance choreography and expressed their creativity with arts and crafts, ate a delicious hot snack, and learned about the love of Jesus through a dramatic show from a team of evangelistic performers – including clowns! (No party in South America is complete in without clowns.)

For the rest of the week, our teenaged volunteers are going to walk through the neighbourhoods around Vacation Camp looking for more street kids to invite. We don’t want any child to miss the chance to meet people who love them and hear the gospel! We’re hoping to forge close relationships with more children from this community, and their families, to bring them closer to churches in their area and get them as much help as we can offer. Which is a lot, since there is such a variety of organisations in Viva’s Paraguay network … day care centres, community schools, day centres and community kitchens, care homes, and churches all work together to improve the lives of Asuncion’s vulnerable children.

The response from the staff and volunteers of all the projects and churches making Vacation Camp possible is very positive. They can’t wait to do more community outreach camps like this soon, when the weather warms up and more kids will come out! Here at the network we’re just so excited to see local projects and churches really working together to reach out to more children at risk. Watch this space to see what we come up with next!

~ Anja, Network Director for Viva in Paraguay

Find out more about what we’re doing to reach out to children in Latin America in the areas of …

Advocacy: http://www.viva.org/Advocates/
Health: http://www.viva.org/Feeding/
Safety: http://www.viva.org/Encounter/

Why is it so important to train the staff and volunteers working with children? http://www.viva.org/QualityCare/

Last week we had a little poll: What’s the best way to prevent child abuse? And we sneakily only let you vote for one answer.

77% of respondents thought the best way is to teach adults about children’s rights.

22% thought that it’s best to empower children to advocate for themselves.

And nobody voted for creating laws that ban child abuse!

Of course, all the answers were somewhat right, but you need all three to be really effective. Laws and policies that ban child abuse are helpful.  But child abuse will always continue if it’s culturally acceptable, as it is in countries like Bolivia where 40% of teachers admit to thinking physical punishment is an acceptable way to discipline a student.  We’ve used this figure before — 80,000 Latin American children die every year in their own homes because of domestic abuse. 

The adults of today’s world need to be educated against neglect and every kind of abuse: physical, sexual and psychological. The problem exists now, and the perpetrators need to be corrected now!  Many parents grew up in an abusive environment and think abuse is part of a normal childhood.  They need to learn otherwise.

But not every adult listens.  In fact, sometimes being told what not to do in their own home can cause people to inwardly revolt.  Pressure has to come from below as well as above: from children themselves.

Big things happen when children know their rights and work together to speak out against child abuse! That’s why we’re committed to all three ways of preventing child abuse: we train project leaders and workers to protect the children in their care and to counsel parents against abuse. We give children the power and knowledge to speak out against abuse.

When thousands of children and hundreds of project workers start acting differently, governments (and parents!) notice. Keep an eye out for great success in Uganda, where this is exactly what’s happening!

I know that if I hadn’t fought hard for my education, I would have ended up married off right after secondary school, living in a village in Andhra Pradesh with a husband I didn’t love. This is real life for the vast majority of Indian women. In fact, in India today nearly half of the women who are now between 20 and 24 years old were married before they turned 18. That’s our modern generation!

For an Indian girl, being denied an education means teenaged marriage, no knowledge of human rights, no knowledge of birth control (and therefore many births, dangerous in rural areas), high infant mortality rates, and a low family income … which just makes it harder to support her many children. It also leads to generations of the same thing, in both her sons and her daughters. Children whose mothers have been educated are twice as likely to go to school as children of unschooled mothers.

Because of this widespread lack of general education, knowledge about AIDS is twice as high in South Asian young men as it is in young women. That probably explains why AIDS affects three times more young women than young men in the region.

Why aren’t girls being educated? Indian culture dictates that boys are just more important than girls. When boys are born there’s a celebration, but when girls are born the ritual is the same as for a funeral. Thousands of girls never even make it into the world – even as you read this, many unborn and newborn girls are being killed. And those that are allowed to live are kept at home to do chores and take care of their little siblings, while their brothers go to school. The expectation is that a girl will just get married and leave the family anyway, so why bother investing in her education? To benefit her in-laws?

In the Himalayan region the situation is especially bad. Husbands and fathers leave their hometown to look for work in the big cities like Delhi. They leave their wives – usually uneducated, of course – and their children at home. But in the cities, the men can easily get hooked on an expensive lifestyle of eating out and visiting sex workers. Often there’s no money left to send home!

So their wives take menial jobs in and around their villages, helping with farming to support the family. You can imagine that menial jobs in India don’t pay that much. Some of their children – which they’re likely to have a lot of, not having knowledge of birth control – have to sacrifice their education to keep the house in order and save money. Do you think the ones staying home are sons, or daughters?

I was a stubborn girl, and when my parents pressed me to marry after I graduated secondary school, I insisted going to university instead. Actually, I even threatened to kill myself if they married me off! My poor parents had to give in, and I was able to get a university education. After I graduated they again strongly pushed me to get married and start a family. But again I pushed back. This time I entered my Master’s degree. My parents realised I was serious. Later I went on to pursue my doctoral studies.

Thanks to my stubbornness, and mostly thanks to God who helped me and gave me boldness, today I’m able to work for Viva in India. My demand for education led me to the place where I am now, in a position to influence the future of thousands of young girls across the subcontinent. I was unique – I suspect most girls wouldn’t feel confident enough or strong enough to stand up to their parents in this way. They might not even think to dream that they could!

And that’s the tragic thing. 52% of Indian women are illiterate, despite the government’s great attempts and successes at boosting the overall literacy rate. The problem facing India’s girls isn’t necessarily a lack of schools or expertise, it’s a lack of respect. That’s why I do my job – heading up Viva’s Jyoti Forum (Jyoti means ‘light’ in Hindi), so that more girls will be able to stand up for themselves and get an education. My day at work involves talking to project leaders around India about respecting and protecting girls. We organise training courses and bring together community leaders, NGO heads, pastors and project workers for various conferences on girl child issues to learn how and why to protect girls and invest in their futures.

If the goal is Eradicating Poverty, it can’t be done without empowering women … because if half the population is still in the dark ages, poverty will always exist. If the goal is Empowering Women, it’s impossible without educating them … because an uneducated woman will simply never be able to keep up in a man’s world like India. Educating women brings up their social status, gives them job opportunities, releases them from forced dependence on men, gives them the knowledge they need to take care of their children, and ensures the next generation is educated too.

The difficulties facing Indian girls come from many different areas of society, and so it will take many different people to help fight them all. The only way we will have the power to change India’s cultural biases against girls is by bringing together local community leaders, pastors, projects, schools, non-governmental organisations and parents, showing them why they should value girls, and creating practical ways to protect the female half of the next generation. A crisis is facing India as long as girls are undervalued and disrespected. Yet I have hope, I see jyoti - light – on the horizon.  When we work together we have real power to make a huge difference, and that’s why I’m proud to be working with Viva.

~ K. in Delhi

South Africa wasn’t entirely as I had expected it to be. Wearing two pairs of socks, having porridge for breakfast each morning and seeing snow capped mountains in the distance — the weather in the Western Cape was not quite the World Cup ‘summer’ I had in mind when planning my trip here! However, I simply cannot complain about the cold, especially when some of the children we were working with turned up barefoot.

On the first day of the Keep Them Safe camps, I visited the Western Cape town of Kolenhoef. Spirits were high among the 80 or so kids who arrived for the camp, walking from their homes in the surrounding farmland. In this community, some of the extremely poor families live in makeshift shacks on the land of the farmer they work for. The volunteers were excited too …if a bit nervous about running a fulltime programme for four weeks. 260 local volunteers have come together to help make Keep Them Safe possible.

The children were then given a taste of the different activities they could take part in. Each camp ran four programmes: sport, arts and crafts, performing arts, and entrepreneurship. At the end of that first day we ended with a lunch of bread and coffee. Yes, coffee for all! “This is all we have to give them,” explained one of the volunteers. But just as we were finishing serving all the kids, the local council truck pulled up with six buckets of soup. The volunteer’s faces lit up with surprise, and all the children were warmed up nicely by the second course of lunch.

Each different camp ‘owned’ its programme, rolling out the essentials of the Keep Them Safe manual with their own unique flare. At the same time there were elements of each activity that highlighted the networking involved in Keep Them Safe and that they were part of a whole community of 13 camps. So what did we actually get up to?

The Entrepreneurship teams were the first to demonstrate the power of working together. What better way to do this than by making a community go kart and racing against each other?! Kolenhof’s young builders were sent on a treasure hunt that led them to a local company who paid for basic construction materials. Back at base camp, they found additional materials that improved their high-speed vehicles. Our Entrepreneurs learned valuable lessons in presenting themselves in a corporate situation and looking for opportunities around them to build upon.

Kolenhof’s Arts and Crafts team was somewhat calmer than its Entrepreneurship team throughout the four weeks. After making bracelets, they designed cheerleader outfits for the Go Kart Race with recycled material, and finally had fun making a giant community vuvuzela. They also painted a banner in the shape of a puzzle piece that fits with other pieces from the other camps, to be unveiled all together as a giant artistic testament to networking at the town hall.

Then last Saturday the race was on. The serenity of the beautiful Jonkershoek nature reserve was shattered by the cheers and shouts of 1200 youth ‘engineers’, cheerleaders and supporters from our 13 camps. Points were awarded for teams with the most times around the track (by pushing, sliding when the wheels broke or carrying the smallest child to be found on whatever piece survived when a kart fell apart!), spirit of the community as a whole, and finally, not giving up. These prizes were awarded by the local council at the closing ceremony. And the soup kept coming … the generosity of the local council became overwhelming when each day more than enough was delivered.

The Performing Arts teams all took part in a talent competition. Each team performed a 30-minute act on the topic of human trafficking, domestic violence, substance abuse, or child abuse. A highlight for me was a play that included young children wearing ‘For Sale’ signs, advocating against the local practice of selling children into labour. Grown-up community members were so grateful for the chance for their children to be on stage. For the performers, seeing their photographs on the big screen as their act was introduced, having their art work displayed and being listened to and judged showed that they were valued and important.

What about the Sports team? Keep Them Safe is about more than just … well, keeping them safe. Our goal was to build a lasting support network that would keep kids coming back. Making sure South African children are safe for the long term is vital, and the coordination team is looking at ways to continue to keep building up the local volunteers and keep encouraging the communities to reach out and help one another for a brighter future in South Africa. This process will be kicked off by a sports day in September to allow community teams that have been formed to compete against one another. They’re calling it ‘Keep Them Active’ – building up a generation of youth who know the power of working together and advocating for themselves.

If you were near Stellenbosch Municipality Town Hall on Friday night, you would have seen a spectacular closing ceremony. This one was, in a way, more important than the one that went on Sunday night, when a few unimportant men in red t-shirts manhandled a golden trophy. At our ceremony, more than 1000 children were the winners and they celebrated by unveiling hand-made banners, receiving prizes, thanking their partners, performing plays, singing, dancing, partying and possibly angling for another cup of soup.

~ E. in Stellenbosch

Keeping kids safe is at the core of what Viva does. Find out more at www.viva.org/qualitycare

Another fact: 20 of Latin America’s largest cities are built on steep hills that are prone to landslides and flooding during the rainy season. One of these is San Jose.

People who can’t afford good housing live on these dangerous slopes. This means that the 42% of children in San Jose’s slums who are already struggling to avoid child labour, gangs and life on the streets also have to contend with scarce land and poor soil quality. What does poor soil quality have to do with children at risk? Well, poor soil grows poor vegetables … and we all know how important vegetables are for helping kids to grow up big and strong. Sadly this problem will only get worse as more and more poor rural families move into the big city to look for work.

Viva’s city-wide network of projects in San Jose has developed a feeding centre initiative. (See Viva’s previous blog on feeding centres.) Feeding centres are located in inner-city churches and staffed by local volunteers. Children can come here for a healthy breakfast and lunch, and they can also leave their little siblings for free child care while they attend to important business of their own, like school!

In fact, in this way feeding centres have made it possible for many inner-city kids to attend school who couldn’t before because they had to care for younger siblings. And because many children who do attend school don’t get proper meals, feeding centres have been a good way to boost grades. You’ll understand if you’ve ever gone to class hungry and tried to concentrate: to be a good student you need good food.

The feeding centres aren’t just offering great meals and babysitting, though. Five of them have started their own hydroponic vegetable gardens! Hydroponics is the perfect answer to the lack of gardening space in San Jose’s slums, because it doesn’t require soil to grow great vegetables and can be done in a tight spot.

What is hydroponics? It’s a way of growing vegetables (or any plant) without soil. Instead, you dangle the roots into water and add a fertiliser solution that gives the plant everything it needs to produce big juicy vegetables. Hydroponic-lovers claim that hydroponically-grown vegetables actually bear better vegetables, because the plant can focus on its produce rather than on sucking nutrients through dense soil – which apparently is hard work for a plant.

On top of that, hydroponic plants can be stacked while they grow, thanks to their lack of soil. This saves lots of space, which is always great in a tight urban environment.

Not only are these hydroponic vegetable gardens putting healthy, nutritious veggies on kids’ plates twice a day, they’re also helping the feeding centres along the road to self-sufficiency. Obviously getting your ingredients for free is better than paying for them, no matter what a good discount compassionate local businesses offer. And offer they have: large local grocers give feeding centres a great deal on staple foods. It’s wonderful to see the whole community get involved in helping feed kids and send them to school. At Viva, our whole mission revolves around getting churches, schools, projects and individual members of the community to work together to help children at risk. Feeding centres are a perfect example of a network at its best.

Who loves the feeding centres’ strange vegetable gardens the most? The kids! It’s a great way to help them understand nutrition, learn how to grow a vegetable garden, and have a real-life science experiment all at once, by getting the kids involved in growing and taking care of the vegetables destined for their plates.

Hundreds of kids now know how to grow their own vegetables without depleting the scarce soil of San Jose’s slippery slopes. Our hope is that they’ll take this knowledge – along with the education feeding centres make possible by providing day care and healthy food – and use it to improve San Jose’s long-term sustainability.

Learn more about feeding centres at www.viva.org/Feeding

The fact can’t be denied that millions of children everywhere in the world are physically, emotionally and sexually abused. Child abuse has been called a ‘national emergency’ in the United States, and in India 223 million children (73 million of whom are boys) have had some kind of sexual activity forced on them.

Abuse isn’t just physically harmful to a child – although every year 80,000 Latin American children die of abuse-related injuries in their own homes. Adults who have survived child abuse are often haunted by fear, mistrust and poor relationships with their own spouses and children. It’s a crime that affects multiple generations.

But God has something to say to abused children:

“I offered my back to those who beat me …
I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.
Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced.
Therefore have I set my face like flint,
and I know I will not be put to shame.
He who vindicates me is near.” (Isaiah 50:6,7)

What God wants abused children to know is this: You have value. You should not be ashamed. Hold on to me, and I will protect you in a way that surpasses the physical. I love you and want you to be safe and happy.

But, amazingly, in the same book we also find some words for those who perpetrate abuse:

“’Lift up your eyes and look around;
all your sons gather and come to you.
As surely as I live,’ declares the LORD;
‘you will wear them all as ornaments;
you will put them on, like a bride.’” (Isaiah 49:18)

In many cases people abuse children because of violence in their own past. Their own eyes are cast down with shame because of the disrespect and violence they experienced during their own childhood. Often they’re ashamed and frustrated because of unemployment or substance abuse. In many tragic cases, parents take out their anger on a child they never wanted, the product of rape or a forced marriage.

But what God wants is for parents to take pride in their children! Think of a bride, showing off her engagement ring to all her admiring friends. That’s exactly how God says parents should feel about their children. They are the crown of a marriage and the joy of their parents and are to be prized like precious jewels!

God is exhorting abusive parents to be released from whatever shame is causing them to abuse their children; to change their ways and be immensely proud of what he’s blessed them with.

That’s why Viva is working with parents, project workers and community leaders in places like Cambodia, Nepal, Uganda, and all over Latin America. Where children aren’t valued by society, it’s hard for individual parents to learn otherwise. So our city-wide networks are showing parents how to prevent and report abuse, and are also offering practical support to help improve the difficult family circumstances that can often lead to abuse.

Project leaders and workers are another important key to stopping child abuse. Sometimes  these dedicated workers devote themselves to simply feeding or clothing the children in their care, and forget to value them as humans. Viva’s working hard to make sure project workers have the best training in child protection and abuse prevention, so that the most vulnerable children not only have a safe place to live but also a trustworthy adult to love and support them as they grow.

We’re also working through 8 of our city-wide networks across Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Uganda to run child advocacy programmes that are helping children free themselves and their peers from the cycles of abuse and disrespect.

Christians have a responsibility, as the family of God, to watch out for abuse in their churches and social circles. It’s our job to lovingly rebuke and correct abusive parents, and to help them overcome whatever haunts them from their past. It’s also up to us to restore abused children and help them realise their intrinsic worth.

God wants all children to live free from abuse, and all parents to be proud of and value their children. Only when we work together can we see this become a reality. Will you join us?

~ J. in Oxford

To learn more about issues of child abuse, please visit www.viva.org/Abuse.


Get involved with Viva at www.viva.org!

First they met for a prayer meeting in the stadium, then they unleashed their advocating power by marching through the city with banners and balloons. Everyone noticed! Local authorities, businesses, and government bodies ‘woke up’ and started asking questions about the kids living on their own streets.

A few thousand kids who have caught the spirit of advocacy are literally changing their entire country.

This is exactly what our world needs – we have to start paying more attention to vulnerable children. For one thing, 56% of all children are living in severe deprivation. Not only are these children suffering in the present, but they’ll be woefully unprepared for the future. By advocating for children and teaching them to advocate for themselves, Christians have a chance to end poverty, abuse and ignorance.

There’s not a moment to lose. We need to be involved in these children’s lives now, showing them God’s heart by being God’s hands and feet. One of the best ways to do that is by spending time and resources on them, showing them how much they’re valued, and giving them the power and responsibility to change their communities. For many kids, it might be the first time anyone has ever demonstrated the words “I love you”.

So what’s Viva doing? We’re directly involved in helping teach children to advocate for themselves, so that they can represent the issues facing them to their parents, teachers and local leaders. (Take a look at our blogs on Child Advocates in Uganda and Bolivia.) And we’re training the people who work with children in projects, usually locals with big hearts, to listen to children and keep them safe. As these adults learn the importance of children, they teach their friends, co-workers and fellow churchgoers. This way thousands of influential leaders all over the developing world are learning that children need to be valued and listened to.

God himself has spoken up about child advocacy. He says:

“Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.” (Isaiah 49:1-2)

This should be the war cry of every child who has experienced repression or discrimination because of his or her young age.

God made each child; we know that. We also know that he loves all children, including us! But many children are denied the right to speak out on their own behalf, or on God’s. This is disturbingly prevalent in our own culture as well as in developing countries, where children are often seen as economic tools for overcoming need – or just extra mouths to feed.

But God wants children to be advocates, and he requires adults to give them the respect that a ‘sharpened sword’ or ‘polished arrow’ deserves. We’re seeing cultures change as children speak out for their own rights and safety! Christians are called to protect children, and that also means teaching them to look out for themselves. By teaching vulnerable children to advocate before their elders and authorities on issues concerning them, we can help them become powerful bringers of lasting cultural change.

“I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances; to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’” (Isaiah 49:8-9)

God has used children to do incredible things. Today, he’s sharpening his swords to cut through the cultural legacies binding children to misery and poverty: things like abuse, lack of education, and forced labour. God is promising to turn today’s vulnerable children into tomorrow’s warriors, and as the work in Bolivia and Uganda shows it’s already started.

To shape the adults of the future, we need to reach the children of today. If we want men and women who stand up for justice, we need to bring up children who know what justice is. And so many children have nobody to bring them up. This is a job for Christians, but we need the help of anyone willing. So join us!

~ J. in Oxford

Learn more about child advocacy at http://www.viva.org/Advocacy/

Read a Viva Volunteer’s account of child advocacy at work in Bolivia.

Thanks to their long and interconnected history, Nepalis can travel to India with no visa and work there without any restrictions. While this is great for adults seeking their fortune in their giant southern neighbour’s cities, it means all sorts of trouble for Nepali children. It’s estimated that up to 7,000 women and children are trafficked across Nepal’s porous borders into India every year, where they’re forced into prostitution – 20% of these are under 16. Nepali females are easy prey: while 69% of males in Nepal are literate, only 42% of females are. As a result of this lack of education and inability to stand up for themselves, 200,000 children of Nepali prostitutes are thought to be living in Indian brothels.

Together with our city-wide network in Katmandu, Viva has been implementing a programme called ‘Daughter’ to teach girls how to stay safe from traffickers, and to show their families and communities how to spot and report trafficking activity. How are we getting word out? Through the church, of course! Before Daughter started in 2008, less than five churches in Nepal were involved in helping children who had been trafficked or abused or preventing these crimes. But by the end of Daughter’s second year, 70 local churches in nine border districts were responding to the needs of these children! That’s pretty good, considering only 0.5% of Nepal’s 30 million people are Christians.

In Nepal, girls who have been raped or sexually abused are encouraged to keep quiet, since it’s thought that bringing these issues to light would disgrace the whole society. A resident of Mahottari describes it like this: “People still are living in silence. They do not know where to go and whom to complain. Many accept it as part of our culture to live in agony for the sake of the dignity of the family, or are scared that they would be forsaken.”

But now that more than 90 pastors have been trained to teach about and deal with child sexual abuse and child trafficking, thousands of girls have a community leader who they can turn to, who will advocate for them before the police (notorious for turning a blind eye) and their families. By 2009, 3764 children and nearly 2000 adults had been taught how to avoid and report trafficking and sexual abuse through the animated Daughter tool.

The Daughter tool is a film about a girl suffering from incest. It’s also distributed as an illustrated flip chart, since most of the country is subject to power cuts for 18 hours out of every day. Viva’s also been involved in distributing 20,000 abuse hotline cards to young people through the network. In fact the whole scheme has been so successful that the local governments have recognised the unity of Christians in their communities. It’s such an unusual thing for local religious groups to campaign against sexual abuse and exploitation that we’re getting a fair bit of attention!

Despite all the success, it’s still an uphill climb. Frequent Maoist strikes have made it impossible to travel or cross borders, so many events have had to be cancelled or postponed. And weak infrastructure has made travel a real challenge; church leaders want to get to border districts to train locals in protecting children, but there are often no roads or the bridges have been washed away in landslides.

On the other hand, local churches in one of the most inaccessible regions have formed volunteer cell groups to intervene in cases of trafficking and sexual abuse. And 19 churches in the Rupendehi network have started a programme to feed and clothe street children – something the churches in that district have never done before! They’re in the process of getting these children involved in their churches.

Working towards a common goal has had the added benefit of unifying the local congregations. According to one Nepali pastor, churches are sometimes so divided that pastors will purposely change their route in order not to see one another in the streets! Now they’re forming networks and thinking up new ways to help children at risk. They’re even starting Sunday schools, which were nearly unknown before.

While trafficking and sexual exploitation are a dismal fact of life in Nepal, the local churches have a fantastic opportunity to reach out with the love of Christ and demonstrate God’s liberating power to the young people in their communities through Daughter.

Here’s a heartbreaking, yet encouraging, success before we sign off. Laxmi was 16 when her cousin raped her while walking her home from work early in 2009. But at a Daughter forum a few months later she said, “I am breaking the silence this afternoon. In my society I am not supposed to speak about sexual abuse because I am a daughter. I reported this case to the police but they did not forward my case. Even my parents did not hear me but they suggested me to suppress this issue for the sake of their social dignity. But, today I realise this is not only cruelty with me – I am thinking of thousands of other daughters who could be victims at any time. The Daughter film has taught me to intervene in cases of child sexual abuse.”

Through Laxmi’s testimony and the effectiveness of the Daughter presentation, the people in her town saw that their culture required a radical change. At the forum that afternoon they committed to prevent child sexual abuse and to help Laxmi fight for the rights of Nepali daughters.

~ Viva, Nepal

Would you like to learn more about the issue of child abuse? Visit www.viva.org/Abuse.aspx.

Keep in touch with Viva by joining our Facebook fan page.

Imagine a poor Indian couple expecting a child. If it’s a boy, he will be the glory of his family: sent to school and given the best opportunities possible, so that one day he can take care of his parents and bring them grandchildren. But if a girl is born, the parents will spend time and money raising a child who will ultimately not only marry out of the family, but who will become a money-sink if her future husband demands a dowry.

What do these expectant parents do? They go to an ultrasound clinic to discover the gender of the child. Having an ultrasound for this purpose is illegal in India but millions of pregnant women do it anyway. If what they see is the form of a little girl, the odds are quite high that she’ll be aborted and her parents will keep trying for a boy. Of course not every Indian couple does this. But many do – 500,000 little girls are aborted every year.

Now imagine a young woman about to get married. At the last moment her fiancé and his parents demand a dowry; this might even happen on the wedding day! To avoid the shame of having her marriage fall through, her parents go into debt to pay the dowry. The marriage takes place, but a few months later her in-laws want more money. Her husband threatens to harm her if her parents refuse to pay, but they simply can’t afford it. Calling their bluff, he beats her and then lights her on fire in the kitchen. It’s appalling, but statistics show that these ‘accidental’ kitchen fires take the lives of more than 5,000 Indian women every year. No wonder there’s often mourning when a girl child is born.

So what can be done? It requires more than banning dowries – that’s already been tried, with no success. What’s needed is for the worth of girls to be made clear to India; to parents, governments, officials and the girls themselves. So four of Viva’s city-wide networks in India have come together to start raising the profile of little girls through our ‘Jyoti Forum’ (Jyoti is a girl’s name that means ‘light’ in Hindi.) We’re bringing together Christian organisations and secular ones to work on this. Inter-faith collaboration is a rare thing in India, but it’s the only way to change the opinions and cultural roots of Indian society.

The city of Vijayawada is a great example of where Jyoti is taking off. Viva’s network of projects and churches in Vijayawada is being trained to care for the particular needs of girls in their city: child abuse, forced labour, sexual discrimination, early forced marriages, and child prostitution. Their aim is to bring 250 girls to high school completion by 2012, as well as reaching thousands of girls through these projects and churches. Raising the standing of girls in India is bigger than just preventing discrimination and abuse, it involves changing peoples’ mindsets about the importance of girl children.

Through Jyoti, these organisations, projects and churches come together voluntarily to discuss issues facing girls in their communities, and to learn how to protect young girls’ rights and persons. Working through networks is the perfect way to bring vital training, information and seminars to thousands of workers nationwide, and to unite them in their purpose to help the girl children. It’s also important to start at the top, with the recognition that India’s society is deeply hierarchical. So we begin by training leaders in projects and communities, so that in time the new mindset will trickle down.

At Viva we believe that India can become a friendly place for little girls to grow up. The church needs to model this change for the rest of society. Just picture a church filled with Indian girls who have been freed from oppression and inequality, praising God happily and equally alongside men and boys! As India realises the importance of girl children, more girls will be educated, more girls will be able to contribute to their families, and dowries will become a thing of the past.

~ J. in Oxford

Keep in touch with Viva on our Facebook page!

I became a Christian as a teenager living near Mumbai. Shortly after my conversion I was prophesied over, that I would “set the captives free”. I started my career in a mutual funds company, but saw that my real calling led in a very different path: working in social and church issues.

I began working with a Christian organisation in Mumbai, helping to free drug addicts from their addictions. During my time there I witnessed many miracles. Our method of rehabilitating drug addicts was this: pray constantly for ten days. We would never give them any alternate medication, but rather did the only thing we really knew how to do: share the love of Christ and pray. Often by the sixth day the man we were praying for would be free from his addiction, with no withdrawal pain! Now that’s what I call Jesus at work! There is no denying that prayer is a powerful thing.

Later, I worked as Chief of Investigations for another Christian organisation. In this position I would visit brothels incognito and identify girls not legally old enough to be prostitutes. These girls are almost always in situations of what we call ‘forced sexual exploitation and abuse’, but which should really be termed ‘slavery’. We were up against the Mafia and against corrupt officers, at a great risk to our lives. But with God on our side we were able to rescue many girls.

My wife was at the time working for a similar organisation, and she told me of one girl who wanted to be rescued. In Indian culture it’s common for a girl to be shunned by her family once she’s been prostituted, even if it was against her will. But by God’s intervention and grace this girl was not only rescued, but also accepted by her mother back home! Jesus is truly the one “who redeems our life from the pit”.

After years of working with people on the streets, I had a desire to work at a level from which I could have a greater sphere of influence. So I applied for the post of Regional Director with Viva. But it’s not only the position that interested me – it is the work! I had never heard of any organization that works at getting people united to generate a Christian response to any issue, but Viva does!

Sadly, organisations in India are often more than happy to work in isolation, and it’s very difficult to convince them to share information. This is the case in Christian organisations too. What does working together look like in India? As I see it, working together means having a united and strong effort to tackle a particular problem. It means praying for one another, supporting one another, sharing information, encouraging one another by sharing success stories, sounding the alarm on failures, sharing resources – all for one purpose. Only pride prevents us from doing this.

Christians have a biblical command to live in community together, supporting one another in faith and good works; we have another biblical command to care for orphans. It is obvious to me that God reveals his plans in Scripture for us to work together to help children at risk! It’s as simple as working efficiently, and not re-inventing the wheel. God is very practical in some ways. We must not waste time; we must be good stewards of what we’re given. One way to do this is to work together.

Please pray for us. Not only for Viva, but also for other agencies that work for children at risk. We urgently require your prayer. At this very moment, as you read this, one more child is added to the unending list of children at risk … one more girl is being abused and exploited. And if you wait to pray, or even while you make the decision to do it, anything could have happened to this child. Yes, please pray.

~ Nitin Thakor, Regional Director, Viva India

Want to hear more exciting stories about Nitin and our other regional directors?  Visit www.viva.org.

If you’d like to join us in prayer for God’s work in India,  please visit www.viva.org/pray

Good thing Viva has teamed up with more than ten international charities to begin to change that! We’re working with World Vision, Compassion, Tearfund and others to deliver training called ‘Let Your Light Shine’ to hundreds of adults who care for children. Let Your Light Shine uses a DVD that teaches caregivers how to provide the best support and care for children suffering under the personal or societal effects of HIV and AIDS. Let Your Light Shine has been specially designed to be useful to churches, orphanages, schools, communities and individual caregivers.

Let your Light Shine includes short documentaries of children who have been living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. It also features 12 educational sections that dispel myths about HIV/AIDS, provide basic facts about the disease, and teach workers how to prevent the spread of the virus. It’s shown by a trained caregiver who helps the viewers understand the needs of sick or orphaned children, and how to prevent AIDS from spreading to healthy children. This doesn’t just improve care for the kids, it also changes local communities by getting correct information out there!

And the amazing thing about using our city-wide networks around Africa is that we’re able to deliver Let Your Light Shine to lots of caregivers at once. In fact, at our first session in Kampala we trained 58 representatives from our network member projects. They went out and told 200 more workers what they’d learned. Those 200 went out and told their own colleagues – 776 of them! So now, through just one day of training from Viva, 1034 caregivers in Kampala know how to care for children suffering from AIDS. We’re pretty confident they’re not keeping the information to themselves, but telling their families and friends how to avoid contracting the disease.

We’ve now trained more than 100 people through our networks in Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe. Even if none of those people were to teach someone else (which, of course, we know they have!) that would still translate to approximately 5,000 children receiving better care. Those children will grow up without the damaging cultural prejudices against AIDS sufferers that their peers might have, and they’ll have a better understanding of the disease and how to avoid it.

Working together is key to achieving the Millennium Development Goal of Combating HIV/AIDS. Even if a big organisation like UNICEF could help thousands of people by working alone, it could potentially help millions by making use of city-wide networks of local projects. That’s why we work so hard to pull people together, forming networks of churches and projects and individuals that can be used to get important information out there that can help kids and communities – helping people to let their light shine!

~ K. in Oxford

Would you like to read more about how Viva’s response to HIV/AIDS?  Visit http://www.viva.org/HIVandAIDS.aspx

Keep in touch with us on Facebook!

“Dad, what’s typhoid?”
“Well, it’s a preventable and curable disease that kills 600,000 people every year, and these shots will make sure we don’t catch it.”

While I ran about between meetings in a suit in 30˚ weather, Lukas was working at Sanyu Babies Home (a long-standing member of our Kampala network of projects) helping take care of 16 abandoned babies. Having the CEO of a charity for a dad means you hear lots about orphanages, but actually being in one changed Lukas’ life. Not only was he overwhelmed with the concept of babies having been abandoned by their parents, but he was overwhelmed with the task of taking care of all of them! He spent a day and a half playing with the babies and doing crowd control while the Sanyu ladies fed them. “How was it?” I asked him at the end of the day. “Noisy, but well-managed” was his very serious reply!

One day Lukas went to school. He went to classes for the day at one of Kampala’s boarding schools. Out of 1,500 students there was one white boy – Lukas! He was an object of keen interest and curiosity all day, but had a wonderful time playing with his new friends.

On another day I had a meeting with the leader of a local project. We spent the first little while talking business and roasting in a concrete office block, until I couldn’t handle it anymore and said “How about we go and see some children?!” So she collected Ernest, the largest man I’ve ever encountered, and together with Lukas we all went down into the slums.

This was a huge shock for Lukas. I could see the questions registering on his face: “How many people live in this awful place?” “How do you live off £1 a day?!” We walked through streets lined with rivers of raw sewage. It’s rainy season, and everything was covered in red mud and the smell of hot, wet people /animals /furniture /filth. We stopped in at the home of Lydia, barely four feet tall, mother of four children under five years old, and AIDS sufferer.

Lydia and her kids share a room in a three-room hut with other tenants in the other two rooms. Your bathroom at home is probably larger than their little apartment, and probably has more furniture in it too. I’m sure my enlightened readers have heard of families living in such tiny homes before, but imagine an eight-year-old English kid seeing it firsthand, for the first time. There was one chair shared between all the tenants in the house, and that was brought out for me (to my extreme embarrassment). The room reeked of sweaty humans, soiled mattresses, and hot mud. Lukas bravely didn’t fuss about that.

With translations from Ernest, Lukas heard how Lydia supports her family. In the morning she goes out and buys plantains (“They’re like bananas,” I told him). Then she puts them into her enormous pot, cooks them and mashes them up into ‘matooke’ (pronounced mah-toe-kay). This requires her to collect wood and keep a fire going all day. Then she somehow carries the pot – and I can’t stress how enormous it is, and she’s just the tiniest lady – out to the main highway, where people on their way home stop and buy scoops of matooke for dinner. On a good day she makes about £1. And that has to be enough for everything she and her four children might need.

But wait, Lukas, there’s more! Lydia is getting evicted tomorrow, because her landlord has decided to take down the little mud-walled house of squalor and build something nicer. Lydia doesn’t know what she’ll do; she can’t miss a day of work, she doesn’t know how she’ll dismantle the bunk-bed that her children share, and she can’t afford the deposit of three months’ rent (the equivalent of £12) on a new room. It’s rainy season, where will they go?

And to top it all off, her three-year-old daughter got her eye poked with a stick while playing with some friends. Her cornea has been half ripped off, and her eye is oozing pus. Lydia took her to the hospital but of course couldn’t afford treatment, so the doctor gave her a little bottle of salt water to pour over it. It’s been a few weeks now and the little girl is going blind. Lukas was in a shock of grief over the various horrors going on in this one little family. The thought that this kind of story was common in Uganda horrified him more.

In beautiful, simple, child-like generosity Lukas immediately emptied all the money he had in his pockets (amazingly, about £12 in Ugandan shillings!) and gladly gave that to Lydia to cover the deposit on a new room. And Ernest rounded up some people to help the family move the next day. I was actually in a meeting later on with representatives from our city-wide network and asked if anyone knew an eye doctor. Thanks to the joint efforts of many of the network projects, the little girl went to see a doctor on 7 June and received proper treatment, paid for by the network. (A grand total of just £3! But such a price was impossible for Lydia to spare. And because they could see she had little money, the doctors just never gave her time of day to realise how simple the procedure actually was.) Due to the long time spent without any treatment, though, the little girl might still lose her eye.

So, overall impressions from Lukas? Seeing kids his own age living in squalor, with diseases and constant hunger, broke his heart. But the amazing positive attitude of these kids, who have so little, impressed Lucas and made him appreciate what he has here in Oxford. And that’s why I brought him along … mission accomplished.

~ Patrick McDonald, Viva CEO

Viva is working really hard in Uganda. To find out more about our work there visit www.viva.org/vivaafrica.aspx

Keep in touch with Viva on our Facebook fan page!

Around South Africa, the atmosphere is reaching fever pitch. Arriving in Johannesburg airport, the first thing I saw was a giant football floating in the air to let everyone know that this was a host city. Fans in all colours were queuing at immigration, the most memorable being a Mexican in his green shirt, big hat, comedy sunglasses and a replica trophy!

So who will win the World Cup? After my next flight to Cape Town, I was whisked to a church in a township that was participating in Viva’s World Weekend of Prayer. I asked the children of the township the same question, and was deafened by the shout of “South Africa!!”

I am privileged to be here for the whole month of madness. Although I’m usually based at Viva’s Africa office in Uganda, I’ve travelled down to work with our city-wide network in Cape Town as they make every effort to keep children safe during the World Cup. The Cape Town network brings together over 90 organisations in the Western Cape area to work on the issues facing South Africa’s children.

One of the most pressing issues across the country is child sexual abuse, and the network members were particularly worried that all the football festivities would lead to an increase in this tragic problem. There is already an extremely high child abuse rate across the country and it is estimated that more than 40,000 people will be trafficked into South Africa during the World Cup to serve the whims of thousands of unscrupulous tourists and locals. South African President Zuma admitted this in a statement on World Cup trafficking, saying “Children wandering alone in shopping malls and football stadiums will be vulnerable to people with evil intentions.” On top of that, many girls looking to make extra money as waitresses or tour guides during the tournament will be fooled into the sex trade. Since the children have now finished school for the 5-week football break, the network has gone into overdrive working with other local community projects to try and ‘Keep Them Safe’.

The network is part of a community initiative to pull together all kind of different projects and churches across Cape Town to set up 13 ‘base camps’. These are 13 centres within communities which have games and play for primary school children in the morning, a workshop choice of performing arts, craft, sport or entrepreneurship for teenagers in the afternoon and big screens for everyone to watch matches in the evenings. One day a week the children will be reaching out through ‘compassion days’, leaving base camp to serve the needs of others. This means that not only will they be carefully looked after and supervised over the five weeks, and thus made much less vulnerable to those ‘people with evil intentions’, but they will also be taught valuable life skills to keep them safe from HIV/AIDS, child abuse and trafficking in the future. 200 local volunteers are facilitating the whole operation that is expected to reach out to over 1800 children and youth each day!

On the eve of the World’s greatest sports tournament and the most ambitious networking initiative I’ve been involved with, I’m looking forward to each and every part of it! Between the football matches and the network’s plans, ‘teamwork’ is certainly the name of the game this summer. So keep an eye on this blog to find out how these tactics help us reach our goal …

~ E. on the road

Want to find out more about keeping kids safe?  Visit www.viva.org.

Keep in touch with Viva on our Facebook fan page!

(Also, if you organised an event, please let us know how it went and what the results were on our feedback form!)

But for now, here are some of the things that went on during the World Weekend of Prayer that people have already told us about…

Livingstone, Zambia: More than 100 children from local projects came together for a prayer event on Saturday, to pray for themselves and other children at risk around the world. Then on Sunday Covenant Community Fellowship Church, also in Livingstone, held a service run by children. During this service children used drama and songs to tell the adults in the congregation about difficulties they face regularly, and then led the adults in prayer for the rest of the service.

Delhi, India: 150 Christian leaders (like church pastors and project leaders) and 50 children got together to pray and worship at Centenary Methodist Church on Saturday. We’re very excited to have so many Christian leaders join forces for this, since as we heard from Nitin in last week’s blog it’s common to find Christian projects trying to ‘go it alone’ in India.

Addis, Ethiopia: More than 250 children at risk from seven projects throughout Ethiopia’s capital city gathered to hold a prayer service at Full Gospel Church. This was the first such event for Ethiopia and they’re planning to run similar ones all over the country next year.

Cape Town, South Africa: Children and grown-ups came together to hold a prayer event where kids learned about trafficking and then prayed for trafficked children and other children at risk. The CONNECT team used great metaphors: the tale of Cinderella and the Bible story of Joseph (of the Technicolour Dream Coat, not Jesus’ dad!) were used to help kids understand trafficking. The children spent the day praying and waiting for answers from Jesus, and then released their prayers (in the form of helium balloons!) at the end of the day.

Kampala, Uganda: The World Weekend of Prayer fell during a month of events focussing on prayer and advocacy, held by our city-wide network. Later this week they’ll release hundreds of helium balloons into the Kampala sky, each one of them with a slip of paper inside teaching the finder how to report abuse and reading, “We’re committed to protecting children – are you?” When the balloons land, the hope is that whoever finds them will write “Yes!” and then send them back to Viva’s Africa office in the mail.

Oxford, UK: At Wokingham Baptist Church, everyone was invited to take off their shoes in order to identify with children at risk, and then shout out prayers or protests. Some examples of shouted protest-prayers: “My feet hurt” and “I don’t want to do this any more!” (meaning kids didn’t want to be miserable and sick, not that they wanted to stop praying!) and “Peanuts!” (from a boy pretending to be a child street-vendor).
And in our International Office, staff members and their families came out on Saturday morning to pray at various stations throughout the office, and spent several hours in worship and prayer.

Did you take a minute to pray, or were you at a prayer event? Go onto our Facebook fan page and let us know, or give us feedback on our website. We’re so excited to hear how God moved in people’s hearts and lives over this World Weekend of Prayer.

~ Prayer Team in Oxford

It’s not too late to pray! Go to www.viva.org/pray.aspx to check out how you can keep praying for children at risk.

Follow us on Facebook and let us know your prayers for children at risk.

But you don’t need to hold a special event to pray – if you’ve got a minute you could even just spend 60 seconds devoting prayer to children at risk. If the same numbers as last year are involved, then that would mean more than two million people taking a minute to pray – which amounts to almost 4 years’ worth of prayer for children over one weekend! Very exciting. So let’s look at what we can pray about…

First, let’s pray for the child who needs a family. A child’s first emotional attachment (usually to his or her mother) is considered to be the blueprint for all later emotional attachments as the child learns how to love and be loved. But according to UNICEF, at least 2.2 million children are growing up in institutional care. Who will they become attached to? Psalm 68 says that “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing.”

Some things we can pray for:
• Children who live in institutions like orphanages in the country where you live
• Ministries, organisations and churches working to help children find families
• Society to respond to the needs of children who need parents
• Children to overcome the difficulties facing them, no matter what they have been through

Next, let’s pray for the child suffering from violence. Children throughout the world are facing more violence in their own homes than you may have ever faced in the most dangerous neighbourhoods. According to UNICEF millions of children run away from home because of abuse – in Latin America, 80,000 children die in their own homes from severe violence every year. Does God care about abused children? Jeremiah 29 says, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Some things we can pray for:
• Children who suffer abuse from their parents or other adults, that they would be given strength and that the violence would end
• Good teaching for parents to discipline their children without resorting to violence
• Governments to acknowledge the importance of families, to honour marriage and pass laws that protect families

Now let’s pray for the child with no educational opportunities. There are about 700 million children in the world of primary school age, but 121 million of them aren’t in school. Poverty and family death often force them to become the heads of their families, forsaking their own education and future. What does the Bible say about education? Isaiah 54 says, “All your sons [and daughters too!] will be taught by the Lord, and great will be your children’s peace.”

Some things we can pray for:
• Children who live in families so poor they can’t afford school uniforms or books
• Children who work during the day to feed their families, missing out on school
• The ministries working to develop and educate children;
• Governments to keep their MDG commitments to provide universal primary education for all children

Next let’s pray for the child suffering through hunger or poverty. You know the statistics are shocking: more than 140 million children are malnourished, and 5.6 million starve to death every year. The International Labour Organisation estimates that 12 million children are the victims of trafficking every year, a direct result of poverty. But Jesus cares so much for these children, in fact for everyone who is living in poverty. In one of his parables, he says, “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” God doesn’t just care for the poor: he demands that we do too.

Some things you can pray for:
• Governmental practices that improve aid distribution so that more needs are met
• Societal commitment to end preventable disease and provide food for the hungry
• Laws that favour children and create opportunities for them to break out of poverty

Finally, let’s pray for the child affected by loss and death. Have you lost a close relative? Around 17.5 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS. These children are extremely susceptible to poverty, homelessness, school dropout, exploitation and abuse. What does the Bible say about loss? 2 Corinthians 1:13 says, “All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us.” And King David, in distress himself, says in Psalm 56, “You have kept count of my trials, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?”

Some things you can pray for:
• More local church congregations will welcome AIDS orphans into their homes
• Government programmes to provide antiretroviral treatment for pregnant mothers with HIV/AIDS, to prevent their children from being infected
• Children in other situations who are suffering loss, such as in war, disease or natural disaster

It’s not all sad news and horrible statistics though. There are lots of organisations out there working really hard to end hunger and disease, provide education, and keep children safe – and they need your prayer too! In fact, you can read some of the Viva blog’s previous posts to see how we’re helping out and getting organisations to work together and be more effective. But please, please pray. We can’t do much at all without the help of God.

~ Prayer Team, Oxford

To hear more about how the World Weekend of Prayer started, listen to an interview with our CEO at www.viva.org/wwp.aspx and click on “Listen to …”

For more ideas on how you can pray and get your friends or kids involved, visit www.viva.org/wwp.aspx and click on “Download Prayer Guide Booklet”.

Have you heard? Children are standing up for themselves in Bolivia and getting the word out about child rights! Through our city-wide networks of local projects and churches in Bolivia, Viva is bringing up child leaders who are making a lot of noise about their rights in their own neighbourhoods and communities.

In Bolivia, education and child health are being improved in the interest of national development. But the root problem isn’t being addressed, and Bolivia still has a culture of child neglect. UNICEF says children in Bolivia are often thought of as property, which explains the astronomical level of abuse in schools.

The easy thing to do would be to tell Bolivian adults to respect children, and then hope for the best. But that solution would hardly last generations. Instead, Viva is teaching the children themselves how to bring about change. Through our networks we’re reaching children at more than 130 local projects and 41 local churches, all over the country. This is why working together is so great – we can reach so many more children than just one project working alone.

Viva has six networks in Bolivia. Each network has 12 representatives, a mix of boys and girls between the ages of 10-15, and these ‘Child Ambassadors’ are elected by the children in their projects to represent them to their communities. Once a year the 72 Child Ambassadors come together to plan ahead for the year, coming up with events and campaigns to run in their hometowns. Then they go home and get to work.

For the last three years as part of their Good Treatment campaign more than 5,000 children have spent a week ‘inoculating’ the adults in their cities against treating children badly. They set up stalls in the busy marketplaces and if an adult stops to hear about keeping children safe, and signs their name to agree to do all they can to protect children, then they’re rewarded with a certificate and a ‘cure’ – a sweet! Last year more than 28,000 adults were given this ‘medicine’ to help them treat kids right.

Throughout the year the Child Ambassadors plan separate events in their own cities to publicise child rights. Last month in Cochabamba, for example, members of the children’s ‘Directorate’ have taken part in municipal elections, arranged interviews on radio and television to tell about the needs of children, attended a leadership camp, and taken a collection of donated clothing to teenagers living on the streets.

Cities all over Bolivia are seeing their very poorest children educated and given the power to stand up for their own rights. Children are invited from the projects and right off the streets to watch videos and attend events that are designed to teach them what rights they have, and how to protect themselves from abuse. The local projects that make up Viva’s city-wide networks know just what children are most vulnerable and can get the word out to them, so that nobody misses out.

Child Advocacy doesn’t just improve the lives of children now. It’s changing the whole society and forcing adults to respect their children as important human beings with rights and desires of their own. And it’s forming the perspective of Bolivia’s future generation – the one that’s growing up now – so that the children living there years from now will do so in a society that respects and protects them.

Excitingly, giving children the power to protect their own rights has been so successful that our networks in Uganda are adopting the same technique. So watch this space, because a member of our international team has just come back from Kampala and will be on here soon to give the latest news …

~ Viva, Latin America office

Education is key if you want to do more than simply interrupt the poverty cycle – and we want to smash right through it for good. People who have been educated in some way are simply more likely to find a better job, no matter where they are. They generally have a wider variety of skills and are likely to receive more opportunities, and ultimately better education often means better rates of pay.
Lots of children start school, but never have a chance to finish it. In Zimbabwe, for example, thousands of children have had their schooling interrupted through no fault of their own. Many have to quit school to help support their families, or take the place of a parent who has died of AIDS. If the opportunity arises for them to return to school, they’re hopelessly far behind their classmates. And even for those who can manage to stay in education, the meltdown of Zimbabwe’s economy has meant that teachers are often on strike or simply unable to afford to get to their classes. So these children are stuck either way.

Thanks to Viva Network Zimbabwe, our Harare-wide network of local projects and churches, we’ve been able to start a programme called Bridging Schools, which is helping kids catch up who have had to leave school. Many projects wanted to help get kids back to school but didn’t have the resources. We train the teachers in the special issues facing these children, provide lunch, and hold devotions. Then we use local churches within the network as classrooms for the Bridging Schools. In 2009 we expected to help 250 kids through Bridging Schools … we ended up with 947 students! Our goal is to bring these students to a level where they can return to public school and be completely up to speed with classmates of their own age, instead of being placed with children years younger than them.

In Kenya one of the largest problems facing universal primary education is the number of children living in slums. Nairobi has great public schools, but none of them are in the giant Kibera slum where 70% of the city’s population lives. So Viva has joined up with 40 local projects and churches to help bring primary education into this area. These were schools run voluntarily by churches and small projects, but without proper training or resources the teachers were overwhelmed and the students often received a low standard of education.

But now, we’ve arranged for government funded schools to ‘lend out’ their teachers for a day each month. They train the slum school teachers in teaching techniques, classroom discipline, and clearly presenting information. In addition, we make sure every child attending these schools gets de-wormed. It’s hard to concentrate on your schoolwork when there are worms in your stomach, stealing all your nutrients!

Through these slum schools we’re educating more than 4,800 students in Kibera Slum. Thanks to their teachers’ training and classroom skills, the students consistently come out on top in Kibera-wide exams.
Education doesn’t just give kids a future; it also helps them in the present. When children are at school, they’re not roaming dangerous city streets or otherwise getting into trouble. Particularly for girls, keeping them in school is one of the best ways of preventing them from being trafficked. When children attend school regularly their teachers can keep track of their location and health issues … school provides one more layer of protection for children whose parents are often sick, absent or overworked.

So my conclusion: aiming for universal primary education is not just a great development goal, it’s actually an achievable one. Together we can do it!

~ J. in Oxford

Want to learn more about Viva’s work educating kids? Visit www.viva.org/BridgingSchools or www.viva.org/SlumSchools.

Close to 100,000 girls are right now enslaved in Cambodia by sex tourism, pornography, forced child marriages and prostitution. The number of these girls who have been sold into the sex trade by members of their own families is shockingly high. Imagine the impact that would have on a little girl’s soul. Not only is her innocence taken from her, but she feels she can’t trust her own family. A typical response is to turn to drugs and forget the pain. Diseases like AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections are common. If she somehow escapes and goes home, her family and friends turn their backs on her because of her profession.

So what can we do?

One of the root issues behind trafficking and child sexual exploitation is poverty. Traffickers know where the poorest communities are, and they know that people are desperate enough to do whatever it takes to provide for their families. They trick parents into sending their daughters to work as ‘maids’ or ‘waitresses’ or ‘nannies’ in the bigger cities, where they are instead sold into a bars and brothels, often forced to sleep with up to 30 men each night.

So Viva is working with StandOut International, which is a charity founded by the members of Christian band Bluetree, and our city-wide network of local projects and churches in Phnom Penh to change this situation. (In fact, Bluetree’s song ‘God of this City’, which is sung in thousands of churches around the world, was inspired during a gig in a southeast Asian bar just like the ones I’m describing.) Together we’re helping relieve some of the poverty in Cambodia through a programme called Doorsteps, specifically aimed at keeping little shoes off the doorsteps of brothels.

We know that education and awareness is key, and so we have helped local projects to offer vocational training programmes for teenagers and families so that they don’t have to look to other more desperate ways of making a living. The network is vital in identifying individual projects who can help offer education and meals and help with housing to those who are struggling. A help-line has been started up, so that children can call in if they spot abuse or suspect a trafficker. A shelter is also being provided, which houses and cares for the sadly high number of girls who have already been trafficked but have managed to escape or return to their community.

Another cause of sexual slavery in Cambodia is the low status of girls. The network is teaching projects, churches and local community leaders about the intrinsic value of girls, and how to protect them against abuse and trafficking. They’re realising that the responsibility for children is theirs, and that anti-trafficking efforts can hardly succeed without them.

Unfortunately, many of Cambodia’s national leaders don’t get this. In fact, according to World Vision Cambodia, some of the country’s top Tourism Department officials are ‘in bed’ with sex traffickers, thanks to bribes and general government corruption. The disheartening truth is that a large part of Cambodia’s GDP comes from tourism, and a large part of that tourism is sex tourism.

So we’ve got a big job ahead of us. Rescuing girls from brothels is wonderful. But stopping them from ending up there is even better. If that’s going to be attempted, we need to work together to build up Cambodian society, helping people lift themselves out of poverty and teaching them the value of girls. Nobody can do that alone, no matter how big they are! Local projects, churches, international aid organisations, government officials, and children and their families need to work together, and already as we begin to do that I’m excited by the amazing changes that are taking place.

Phnom Penh

Want to know more about how to get involved with Viva as we help people work together to fight this kind of child sexual exploitation? Go to www.viva.org/Doorstep.aspx

Hear the Bluetree song inspired by the plight of these little girls at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqQhZKpZVCo

These goals include things like reducing child mortality, combating diseases like HIV and malaria, making sure primary education is accessible to everyone and ensuring environmental sustainability. These sound like such big objectives, but lots of great work is already going on around the world to make these goals a reality. Like what Viva is helping to do in Costa Rica to meet Goal #1- Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger…

Viva’s Feeding Centres operate in the worst parts of San Jose, Costa Rica. In these slums 42% of children are malnourished, and many have to quit school to look after their little brothers and sisters so their parents can go to work. Hunger and poverty are resulting in a lack of education – a setback for two of the MDG’s.

Through our partnerships with local churches in San Jose, our city-wide network is providing meals for 450 children a week at our Feeding Centres. But it’s not just us giving these kids healthy meals – we’re helping make sure they’re well-fed at home too. We’ve designed a programme to teach parents how to buy the most nutritious food even with very little money, and to prepare healthy meals for their children.

One of the major benefits Feeding Centres are having on their communities is, surprisingly, child care. Our intent in setting them up was simply to feed children. But since there are always volunteers in the Feeding Centres, kids can leave their little brothers and sisters at the Centres while they go to school. They pop in for breakfast, leave the little ones and go to school, hurry back for lunch, and then pick up their brothers and sisters on the way home.

For eight-year-old Rosita, this means not spending every day sitting in her family’s tiny home or walking the dangerous streets. Until she discovered her local Feeding Centre she had to stay with her two-year-old brother while her parents went to work. Now she knows he’ll be happy with all the other kids at the Feeding Centre while she goes to class, and they both have two healthy meals a day there.

If our new UK government can step up its efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, especially eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, then it will mean the world of difference to more children like Rosita. Eradicating hunger is the foundation that development is built on: giving children education, fighting disease and reducing child mortality will all be impossible as long as children are malnourished.

In 2000 the world witnessed its leaders agree to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. There are only five years left! So will David Cameron lead us in our final push to achieve these goals to improve the lives of children all over the world … or will he let the opportunity pass him by?

~ K. in Oxford

The MDG’s are not just for governments! Many different people, businesses, churches and projects will have to work together if we’re going to reach all these goals. Viva is helping unite and strengthen those people as we work to eradicate poverty, achieve universal education, fight malaria and reduce child mortality. Go to www.viva.org to find out more about what we’re doing and how you can get involved.

In Bolivia, one third of children are employed as workers in extreme conditions in places such as mines and sugar plantations — that’s 320,000 kids working from dawn till dusk for very little money. Many of them have started school, but are forced to leave to support their families.

While lots of the child workers are in the countryside, thousands of kids in Bolivia’s cities are also working. Parents have to sacrifice the education of one child, usually the oldest, so that the rest can eat and go to school. Often these children go around the city streets with little carts, selling whatever they can. And it’s not a big step from working on the streets to sleeping and living there full-time.

It’s been really exciting seeing Viva help these kids. Of course the problem can’t be solved by just sending the children to school, because then how will their families afford to live? Viva’s made a way around this though, through Early Encounter.

Early Encounter is Viva’s response to street kids in Latin America. Through our city-wide networks of projects, we work with the children and families most at risk of ending up on the street and provide them with the things they need, whether it’s breakfast, medicine, counselling or a place to sleep. Because we have connections with so many local projects and churches, we have the inside scoop on which kids really need help and we have plenty of options of ways to take care of them.

One of my favourite examples of Early Encounter in action is the story of 14-year-old Rodrigo. We found him in the market square in Cochabamba early one morning, panicking because he was unable to rent the cart he needed to walk around selling things. No cart, no money … no dinner. One of our staff seized the opportunity to pay the damage deposit for the cart so that Rodrigo could rent it, and then we invited him to join us for breakfast!

Now, along with dozens of other young street workers in Cochabamba, Rodrigo comes to an Early Encounter project early every morning for breakfast. Then to support his family, he spends the rest of the morning working. In the afternoon he goes to another project that provides vocational training, and is learning how to become an electrician. Since we’ve earned the trust of his family we’ve been able to counsel his parents too, giving them the skills they need to support the rest of their children without having to sacrifice their futures.

That was 18 months ago. Now Rodrigo has been able to finish primary school and has even received money from the Bolivian government to continue his education. When he’s completed his electrician training he won’t need to work in the streets anymore, and thanks to Early Encounter his little brothers and sisters will never need to either.

It’s stories like this that have caught the attention of governments across Latin America. Viva is having huge success because we’re not trying to solve problems ny ourselves. Instead we’re helping the local projects that already exist and know all about their own neighbourhoods, teaming them up to work together and showing them how best to care for street children and child workers.

Viva Latin America

To learn more about Early Encounter, please visit www.viva.org/EarlyEncounter.aspx

Another great blog on Viva’s work in Latin America is www.jonniewelford.blogspot.com

A month into my stay in Kampala, things are getting really exciting. Last week I had the opportunity to meet two guys who flew here from the UK to start something called Community Albums with our network projects. Through the group of 113 projects we have linked up here in Kampala, Viva is hosting Community Albums on its first venture outside of the UK.
What is Community Albums? It’s all about giving children the power to talk and the opportunity to be heard. Rob and Simon taught the children how to use computers, cameras, voice recorders and editing software. Then the children went into their neighbourhoods to record bits of their lives, compose songs, film plays and take pictures to share with the world on Community Albums’ website.

The training day was lots of fun. Children from different projects had a chance to meet new friends and work together to make their own videos. They learned how to mix beats, sang into a professional microphone, synthesised instruments, and edited the final product. One of the girls, an energetic 16-year-old called Cynthia, is actually working on a full-length play called ‘Made in God’s Image’ to produce through Community Albums.

The children also learned to edit photos and make videos. The excitement grew as they interacted with technology and saw how easy it was, and finally saw and heard the results of their work. On Monday morning it was especially exciting to show children how to use a computer. For some of them it was their first time in front of a monitor and holding a mouse. One of the girls was very quiet and very focused on the assignment. At the end she called me and whispered in my ear, “I want to keep learning, I want to do it again.”

One of the most important things that Community Albums offers is the opportunity to help the kids see that they are able to do great stuff for themselves. At the end of the training we saw many happy faces full of excitement to see themselves on the screen, to hear their voices and to see that they were able to create a film that communicates who they are.

Fifteen children from five projects came out, and took cameras and computers back to their own neighbourhoods to record a day in their life. And because of the individuals and churches that sponsored this first trip out of the UK, we were able to get real professional equipment that could be left at Viva so the children could keep using it at their projects.

The theme given to the kids is: “If you were on a stage, and the world was your audience, what would you say?” Here are some of the things they’ve come up with to say to the world, during their first day of training at the Viva office in Kampala.

“If the world was my audience, I would tell them to put Jesus first in your life. Yes, that is what my words would be.”

“It’s our right as children to be educated!”

“I have a message for you from Jeremiah 1:5. ‘God knew us when we are still in our mother’s womb,’ and that means that God cares about us, God gives us protection, and God can care for us everything we want. God can give us everything we need.”

“I have good news for you! That you should love one another as God loved you.”

It’s going to be amazing to see what other things these kids will say to the world as Community Albums rolls on in Kampala. Rob and Simon are going home this week, but Viva and the network will make sure Community Albums keeps helping children learn to use their own voice. I wish every child could have this opportunity!

~T. in Kampala

Please visit http://communityalbums.com/communities/children-at-risk-action-network to see all the photos and videos

To learn more about what Viva is doing in Africa, visit http://www.viva.org/

I recently flew to Ethiopia for meetings on something new and wonderful called the 4-14 Window. On my way out of the meetings each evening I saw groups of children huddled around fires, under whatever bridge they could find. In many countries these children would be forgotten, but in Ethiopia there’s a good chance the local church is taking care of them somehow. That’s because the church in Ethiopia has become one of the most enthusiastic defenders of children’s rights in Africa.

During childhood is when most people make the decision to become Christians – between the ages of 4 and 14. Luis Bush, the same man who brought us the geographic ‘10/40 Window’ of unreached people, has now bought into the idea of the ‘4-14 Window’: pressing churches to reach out to the children in their communities. Viva was a big part of the group that developed 4/14.

4-14 Window is now rapidly becoming a global campaign to get the church to take children seriously. Viva is a key part of this movement, and as a member of the campaign’s executive board I am deeply involved in trying to get Viva’s networks to champion 4-14 Window in the countries we work in. This could be huge, and it needs to be!

There are about 1.2 billion people in the 4-14 age range. However, only about 5% of the world’s churches run programmes that reach out to these children. Given that children have the greatest potential to become followers of Christ, shouldn’t we be working extra hard to get them into church?

Viva has been lobbying this idea to the churches of the world for years. We believe God’s heart for children is made obvious in the Bible, and that each church and community needs to adapt this to their particular circumstances.

Nowhere has this been so well accepted as in Ethiopia. There former Justice Minister and Compassion country director Shiferaw Michael has started an initiative to get churches to minister to children. So far 29,000 churches in Ethiopia have taken up the call! It’s because of Shiferaw’s success and the massive church response that our meeting was held in Ethiopia. (Although another country that’s growing fast in child ministry is Mexico, and also Uganda is hot on its heels.) These churches are not just providing Sunday school for the children already in church – they are reaching out to children who need Jesus by hosting everything from after school programmes, art classes, sports clubs and mentoring to orphan care and feeding centres; and some churches are even running their own schools for street children.

By the year 2020 there will be around 7 million churches worldwide. Viva’s mission is to get all those churches actively following God’s command to protect children and bring them up in justice and compassion. I believe Viva’s involvement in reaching out to children in the 4-14 Window will be a major contribution to that goal.

~ Patrick McDonald, Viva Chief Executive

To learn more about what Viva is doing in Africa, visit www.viva.org
To find out about the 4-14 Window, visit www.4to14window.com

A few weeks ago a colleague and I flew to the Philippines to start up a Quality Improvement System (QIS) training centre.

QIS is Viva’s solution to overworked, undertrained child care workers around the world. Anyone who’s worked in any kind of office or group situation, or played on a sports team, knows that it’s easier and less stressful when everyone knows how to do their job. Or, imagine your office without a filing system: it would be chaotic without basic organisation. The people who devote their lives to caring for children at risk are passionate and committed, but also they are often untrained and inexperienced. Through QIS, project leaders learn the skills they need to run an efficient, professional and loving programme for children. Projects that provided adequate care for children before going through QIS provide excellent care for children afterwards.

Part one of our mission in Manila was to train three people how to teach QIS to others. We were blessed with three experienced people who work together very well and caught on extremely quickly. Most of our time in the Philippines was spent training these three so they would be ready to lead QIS by the time we left.

Part two of the mission was to recruit projects to actually go through the QIS training. Here a truly amazing thing happened. Two networks that have not worked together before joined up to take QIS. These were the Philippine Children’s Mission Network (PCMN), a nationwide group of projects; and the 180˚ Alliance, a worldwide network of projects working with street children. Not only have these networks committed to QIS, but for the first time they’re collaborating together to bring better care to more children right in their own neighbourhoods.

Our goal was to have 25 projects from within PCMN and 180˚ sign up to take QIS. We invited 37 projects to our ‘launch day’. And – what a miracle – representatives from exactly 25 projects showed up! 10 of these signed up on that very day, 13 asked for a follow-up meeting with our freshly trained QIS teachers, and only two gave us no response.

Manila is a metropolis made of multiple cities, with tens of thousands of street children, and hundreds of thousands of children living in poverty. The projects that have committed to QIS will cover most of the city. To start off our launch party we all sang the Bluetree song “God of this City”, a perfect representation of what God is going to do through these people. (And interestingly, Bluetree themselves have recently joined together with Viva to tackle child trafficking issues in Cambodia.)

The project leaders attending QIS will be trained for two years. The subjects covered by QIS are topics that are crucial in the field of caring for children at risk: child protection, caring for staff, financial accountability, project planning and design, governance, and child wellbeing – physical, emotional, spiritual and developmental.

Along with these standard QIS topics, the Filipino group will also learn about child advocacy, particularly in the area of child domestic labour. Many children in Manila who come from poor families are sent to work in the homes of wealthier people, often for no pay, where they may be beaten, sexually abused or even killed.

We had an exciting visit from a representative of the Filipino government, a section head from the DSWD (equivalent to the Department of Social Security) on our launch day. Her department realises the value of improving the quality of local projects, but the Filipino government simply can’t help every project that needs it. Her visit really encouraged us that the Filipino government supports Viva’s work.

QIS training hasn’t started yet in Manila, but it’s off to an excellent start. I was satisfied and ready to come home to the UK. But something going on diametrically across the world provided one more stressful hurdle for me to jump – a certain Icelandic volcano erupted halfway through my stay in Manila and threatened to keep me there for longer than I’d planned. But, as through the entire trip, God provided a way for things to go forward smoothly. I was able to print my ticket the day before, walked through the sizeable crowds of people waiting to get home at the airport, and got on the flight I had booked! A perfect ending to a successful trip!

~ S. in Oxford

To learn more about QIS: www.viva.org/qis.aspx
For more on Viva’s partnership with Bluetree: www.viva.org/Doorstep.aspx

It takes 18 hours to fly from my hometown to Kampala. That’s a lot of time to consider what you’re getting yourself into. If someone mentioned Uganda you might think of things like the Lord’s Resistance Army, child soldiers or AIDS orphans. Those things are all appropriate, but I was thinking more about what I can do to help! I’m going to Kampala to volunteer with Viva and help improve children’s lives, and I can’t wait.

The first thing I saw when I got off the plane was a sign saying “Welcome to the Pearl of Africa”. And it’s true: emerald green tropical forests and a very welcoming community of Ugandans accepted me as a part of their own. There are many things you can do here: explore the yellow savannah filled with wildlife, admire the sparkling waterfalls, and sunbathe near majestic Lake Victoria. But above all these wonderful places you can find in Uganda, the most impressive and beautiful thing I’ve seen is its people.

I’ve been deeply impressed with the genuine friendliness of the people here. In fact, it’s not so different from where I’m from. Some of the people may be enduring difficult circumstances, and most of them may not have the kind of life Westerners enjoy, but I have learnt to see the important things in life, the things that really matter … and Ugandans have them all! You can’t help being captivated by their big smiles, their generosity and their openness.

The best example I can give of this is at the projects I’ve visited. Part of my job is to visit child care projects that are members of the CRANE network, which Viva brought together and works with closely (a network is a group of people and projects in a local are who have officially joined up to work together). These projects are often orphanages, homes filled with children who have been abandoned or whose parents have died. Yes there is pain: many of them come from broken homes and sick parents; but in that pain God is meeting their needs, bringing joy, love and care through the lives of many people who are making a difference.

These kids are reminding me that we are called to be joyful and thankful in every circumstance. They are so happy to have “moms”, the ladies caring for them in the orphanages. Thanks to these projects’ connections with one another through Viva the kids can attend school, go to church, play sports, and get medical care – and enjoy a safe environment where they can grow, develop and just be children.

Of course there’s sadness too. Many of these children are awaiting adoption, and I know that only a few of them will ever realise that hope. Many of them are disabled or are suffering from HIV/AIDS themselves. But I see God in every one of their smiles. They have more joy than many people who have never known suffering or even seen it.

Last week I visited a home for disabled children. When I showed up the leaders were just in the process of setting up a dance party. I wondered: “for disabled kids?” Some of them couldn’t walk at all, how were they going to dance? I was actually upset, thinking it was insensitive to ask these children to dance. But then the music came on … and I found that I was very wrong. These children could definitely dance, and they were thrilled about doing it. One boy, Marcus, was 13 and had polio. He couldn’t use his legs. Did that stop him? I couldn’t have made Marcus stop dancing if I wanted to! We all had the most fun time, and at the end Marcus invited me back.

I think I’ll accept.

~ T. in Kampala

Check out www.viva.org to find out more about what Viva does in Africa.