In a Costa Rican community controlled by drug cartels, local church leader, Bella Flor, has spent the last two decades bringing holistic transformation to the lives of children and families, whilst also getting her hands dirty by cleaning up the local environment. Bella Flor talks to us about her motivation, her challenges and how being […]
Tag: community
Teaching Teachers to Play
BY JANET GAUKROGER Janet Gaukroger has been working with our partner network CRANE in Uganda for over 10 years. On her most recent visit last month, she helped lead a learning retreat for ten young women who are training to be early childhood teachers. She tells of her experience meeting the group of soon-to-be teachers […]
Heartbreak and hope
BY LIZ CROSS Four children were playing on the streets of Guatemala City when they were approached by a man who offered them food to coax them into his house. Three of the children regularly attended workshops run by Viva’s partner network, Viva Guatemala, and knew not to trust the man. But the other boy, […]
Four tips to encourage your church to work with others
Services for vulnerable families in the UK are being squeezed at a time of unprecedented demand. Churches are particularly well placed to offer meaningful support but there are, of course, significant barriers to growing this work, such as lack of volunteers, finances and in-depth understanding. Both the scale of need in the community and the […]
Threads of hope
BY KEZIA M’CLELLAND What does hope look like, and where can we find it? I’ve come to discover that hope emerges in the most unlikely of places – even in a dusty, dangerous refugee camp – and when it does it can change everything. After nearly six years of conflict, Syria’s children continue to face […]
Finding life in the cemetery
Liz Cross, Viva’s Supporter Care Co-ordinator, writes about her recent trip to visit Viva’s partner network in Guatemala City and about finding positive stories in difficult places. A cemetery is one of the last places I expected to be standing when visiting Viva’s partner network in Guatemala City. However, over 2,000 people live on the […]
The power of community
I want to tell you a story about Daniel, a five-year-old boy from Paraguay whose family has been transformed by support from their local church and our partner network, Red Viva Paraguay.