HEADS UP, 7 UP!
I, Heather, have vivid memories of playing “Heads Up, 7 Up” in elementary school. With my head pillowed in the crook of my left arm and my right fist propped up on my desk, I waited with eager anticipation for the possibility of being chosen by one of the seven students who was “It.” With the slightest graze of my shoulder, my right thumb popped to attention, as I tried to decipher which of my classmates chose me.
The thrill of being chosen, the thrill of trying to identify by whom I was chosen, and the reward of being able to pay it forward to another of my classmates was the epitome of elementary school excitement.
But being chosen doesn’t always bring joy.
In Daulatdia, Bangladesh, there is a community of children whose future has been chosen for them. Growing up in one of the largest brothels in the world, these children bear witness to the depravity of human trafficking on a daily basis. They’ve grown accustomed to hiding under the bed or being shooed out to the alley while their mothers are trapped in a system of revolving doors.
Without a father’s name to list on their birth certificates, children in Daulatdia are social outcasts and have difficulty gaining entrance to school. Without an education, the options for a different future are very limited. Girls are especially vulnerable to being trapped in the brothel as their mothers and grandmothers “age out.”
Without intervention, a future of slavery has been chosen for them.
But God.
You have the opportunity to be part of what God is doing to write a different future for these children and their families.
Children of Promise has been invited by local leaders to start a residential program called the Meena Project for these vulnerable girls in Daulatdia. The house has been built. The girls who will live there have been identified. The final barrier to getting them into the home is the startup costs to get it completely furnished. It’s an invitation that we just can’t turn down.
This May, you can triple your impact to help Children of Promise grow into a sustainable future and launch the Meena Project.
When you initiate a recurring monthly donation* of $7 to Children of Promise, a generous donor has agreed to release $14 in matching funds for the final startup costs of the Meena Project.
Your $7 commitment will make a $21 impact.
Children of Promise has been experiencing incredible growth over the past few years. Amazing invitations to join God’s work of making wholeness possible for vulnerable children keep coming our way. We want to be able to say yes, and your $7 per month commitment will help us do that for the long term. This month, your commitment will also start writing a different future for 50 girls in Daulatdia.
Our goal is to be able to release $7500 of startup funds to the Meena Project, which means that we’re looking for 535 people who will start or increase their recurring monthly donations to Children of Promise by just $7 per month.
Together, let’s choose a future of wholeness for the children in Daulatdia and a sustainable future for Children of Promise.
Give Here
*All new or increased recurring gifts to the Making It All Happen fund through May 31. 2024 will qualify for this match.
LATRINES SAVE A SCHOOL
A cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe that began in February 2023 has wreaked havoc on an already vulnerable population in Zimbabwe in southern Africa. In villages that lack adequate water treatment and sanitation systems, cholera runs rampant. The United Nations reports nearly 32,000 cases of cholera in Zimbabwe since February 2023, 31% of which are in children below the age of 15.
On a recent visit to Zimbabwe, Director of Development, Kyle Hayes, saw first hand how the release of Emergency Funds to Zimbabwe in 2023 has saved the education of sponsored children and their classmates.
A decade ago, an entire community in Zimbabwe was forced to relocate from their fertile farmland to a desolate area of Masvingo Province. UNICEF set up tents and dug pit latrines for the community to use for the elementary school. Over time, the latrines have filled up, rendering them unusable. Without usable toilet facilities, the government was planning to close the only school in the area.
Rev. Guni, the director of Children of Promise in Zimbabwe, reached out to our office to request emergency funds to build new latrines in this village, and others, where sponsored children live.
At this particular elementary school, 350 students and their teachers are making use of two latrine stalls. There is ONE girl’s stall and ONE boy’s stall for the entire school. While this is far from ideal, it has saved the school from closure and made it possible for sponsored children and their peers to continue their educational journeys. Your generous gifts to the Emergency Fund made this possible. THANK YOU! CLICK HERE for a video about this story.
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