Supporting families through the Covid crisis

Lucy Cox reports on how the first phase of Viva’s family phone mentoring programme reached thousands of families during 2020. Viva’s family phone mentoring programme was designed about a year ago as a response to the growing and alarming Covid-19 crisis – specifically to reduce violence and abuse of children and to provide psychosocial support, […]

God can make the impossible, possible

BY EMMA STONEHOUSE Myanmar continues to be afflicted by long-standing conflict, with Unicef estimating that 460,000 children require humanitarian assistance due to war and natural disasters. However, in the midst of such a disheartening statistic, there is abounding hope. Children can often be a forgotten party in times of war, as many find themselves far […]

Off the streets and into families

BY EMMA STONEHOUSE Prevention of and rescuing children from a life on the street – through families. Over the last three years, Viva’s partner network in Kampala, CRANE, has rescued and resettled 795 street children into families. It is estimated that 15,000 children live on the streets of Uganda, almost all experiencing some form of abuse. […]

Why Families Matter

It’s estimated that there are 145 million registered orphans across the world, and of these only about 9 per cent have lost both parents. Many families are unstable and millions more children are separated from one or both parents due to violence, abuse, alcoholism, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, and other conflicts. Too many children are suffering […]

Community mentors’ crucial role in Uganda

BY LIZ CROSS “The smile I saw that day was enough to make me smile for the whole week. Faith couldn’t believe she was the one wearing the hat and receiving the certificate.” Faith is a girl who attended one of our Creative Learning Centres in Uganda. These centres provide catch-up education for girls who […]

There before a crisis

BY HANNAH BARR The BBC reported today that “thousands of vulnerable children in England are being ‘left in limbo’ because their needs are not severe enough.” The charity, Action for Children, has warned that potentially hundreds of thousands of children are falling through the cracks because they are not at crisis point. They warn that […]

Kampala discussion focuses on families for children

More than 40 senior leaders in Kampala joined Viva and its partner network CRANE at a landmark meeting last month, which explored how Christians in government and civil society can work together more effectively to ensure that children in Uganda are raised in safe families. Using the vision statement, ‘We want to see every child […]

Dotting I’s and crossing T’s

BY LIZ CROSS Imagine walking eight hours to register your child’s birth. You arrive at the government centre and it’s crowded with people. They are all waiting to do the same as you – there’s only one registration centre to serve 200,000 people. The queue is long. You hear stories of how the internet connection […]