These are statements we hear from moms in our Child Survival Program:

“I didn’t know the importance of cleaning with soap.”

“I didn’t know that I was not feeding my child correctly.”

“I didn’t know that it was important to play with my child.”

Mothers in our Child Survival Program range in age from the young teens to the early 40s. Knowledge that we consider common sense is not always common for them. These moms typically lack the opportunity to learn basic home economics skills. And sometimes, the lack of one of these basic skills means life or death for an infant.

So what do we do?

Our Child Survival Program builds trust between a mother and a church staff member who visits on a regular basis. These visits provide opportunities to teach home economics skills in a safe and trusting environment.

We provide church partners with a list of necessary home economics skills; the staff then adapt the list so that the skills fit the context of their communities.

Our resource curriculum provides “mini lesson plans” enabling Survival Specialists to teach these skills to mothers in the program.

Samples of these skills include:

• Ensuring a source of fuel for cooking, like firewood or gas, and safely handling the fuel source.
• Understanding a balanced diet and providing it to the infant. This helps the mother avoid giving her child “empty calories” such as those found in tea or colas or carbohydrate-rich diets that lack essential protein, vitamins and minerals.
• Purifying water to make it safe for drinking.
• Identifying the early symptoms of illness so mothers can seek medical assistance for her children as quickly as possible.
• Using soap and water to wash hands before handling food and after using the toilet or latrine. And, teaching the same to their children.
• Understanding a baby’s temperament so that mothers can better and more quickly address the baby’s needs.
• Making and using laundry detergent to clean the family’s clothing.
• Making safe and fun toys for the children from recyclable materials.
• Removing or being vigilant about hazards that can harm children in the home.

Because many moms in the Child Survival Program are also illiterate, our resource curriculum also contains mini lesson plans to teach them functional literacy and basic math skills. Basic skills mothers should have in order to properly care for their children, especially in emergencies, include:

• Reading a medicine label and instructions so medicine can be properly administered when necessary.
• Reading a map or a bus route to go to the hospital when necessary.
• Understanding a bill.
• Managing a simple budget.
• Understanding a proper business transaction (such as giving cash and counting change).
• Understanding simple arithmetic such as addition and subtraction and some multiplication and division.

Moms in our Child Survival Program also have opportunities to learn income-generating skills so they may eventually help provide for their families financially.

Examples of these income-generating skills include:

• Sewing and tailoring.
• Baking and cooking.
• Confectionery, such as making chocolates and candies.
• Beauty services, such as manicures and pedicures.
• Simple agriculture and animal-husbandry skills, such as growing their own vegetables and raising their own chickens and goats.
• Cleaning services.

So, next time you slip on your dishwashing gloves, or pick up a bar of soap to wash your hands, or take out food to prepare a meal, remember how valuable your knowledge of home economics is. It helps keep you healthy.

Similarly, next time you read a medicine label, get directions from a Global Positioning System, or receive change from a vendor, thank God that you are not dependent on other people to explain these things to you. You are less likely to be taken advantage of.

And next time you set about to do your work, even if it is drudgery, thank God that you have an income. Many people don’t even have the skills or opportunity to work. Thank God that He gives us common-sense knowledge to share with others!

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Our holistic child development model is central to our mission of releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name. And the curriculum standards we have put in place in all of our programs are key to achieving this goal.

In recent years, we developed a global curriculum to help develop children holistically — physically, spiritually, cognitively and socio-emotionally. It is designed to be nonacademic, similar to an after-school enrichment program. For example, instead of learning math, children learn how to apply mathematical skills.

Another example is that in many of the countries where we work, children are taught to stay quiet and to not share their opinions. Instead of just telling them what to do, we work through our curriculum to empower children to have their own voice when they leave our sponsorship program.

“We want them to own their own development,” says Mary Ann Springer, who led the curriculum design. “As an example, we train the children how to eat well so they can make good decisions on their own.”

The new curriculum is both age-appropriate and contextualized to fit the needs of the children. For example, in our Child Sponsorship Program the lesson plans are aimed at age groups of: 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14, 15-18 and 19 and above.

For the 3- to 5-year-olds, a physical lesson might be learning about basic hygiene, such as brushing your teeth. The spiritual lesson might be learning a Bible story. A socio-emotional lesson might include learning how to treat others. A cognitive lesson might teach about the five different senses.

Global curriculum standards ensure quality programming in our child development centers by giving the tutors easy-to-use and effective material to teach the children. Another important benefit is having measurable “outcomes” and “indicators.”

“Every lesson plan and activity points to a specific outcome and indicator,” says Springer. “The goal is for every student to graduate having achieved the four outcomes, each with three indicators, for the lesson plan.”

For example, one outcome of physical development is that a child “chooses good health practices and is physically healthy.” The three indicators associated with this outcome are that the child:

1. demonstrates an appropriate understanding of his or her physical body
2. experiences reduced incidence of illness, nutritional deficiencies and physical impediments
3. takes responsibility for wise life choices about health and sexuality

The new curriculum standards also provide for focused, detailed lesson plans. This allows the tutors to have a clear path to obtain the desired objectives. It greatly helps the teachers prepare the classroom programs. With less time devoted to preparing lesson plans and with better tools, they are able to give individualized attention to each child.

The curriculum uses various methods of teaching in order to reach every child’s learning style, whether that’s hands-on, auditory or visual. Most of the lessons are participatory, including small groups, discovery and games.

Because we work in so many diverse cultures, each of our country offices has the freedom to contextualize the curriculum to their specific needs. For example, in Indonesia, one of the lessons had been designed to teach the children how to tie their shoes. However, in some of the communities in Indonesia, they wear sandals, not shoes that tie. Contextualizing helps our offices weed out culturally irrelevant content.

The variations of the curriculum range widely from country to country. Some use the standards as they are and some have made major changes. For example, in Rwanda, due to the past internal conflicts, there is an emphasis on teaching forgiveness.

“As long as there is balance within the curriculum, the countries have freedom to adjust the curriculum to their needs,” says Springer.

Our new curriculum helps children develop into whom God made them to be, and the tutors no longer feel burdened with developing daily lesson plans. They now have the time to devote to the children to encourage them to grow holistically.

As the new curriculum standards are implemented in more child development centers, we draw one step closer to using fully realizing our mission: releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.

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One day Pastor Alioas saw a group of lepers and beggars who were trying to survive on municipal land. He watched as police pitilessly chased away the poor street dwellers. With a broken heart, he began to weep and pray. It was in that moment he received a vision from God.

Pastor Alioas wanted to help people who were rejected by society. He started to work among the lepers and beggars, leading spiritual meetings for the lepers and giving them food. During those days, he actively carried the gospel across different parts of Kerala, India. His traveling brought him to the community where he now lives.

The majority of the tribal people in the area where Pastor Alioas lives sold their land for meager amounts of money or goods. They are indebted to the landlords and money lenders, unable to pay them back because of high interest rates.

In this situation, the children usually become slaves of the landlords. Although the families toil hard to work the land, they have no right to demand money from their landlords. Whatever they are paid, they accept silently. They have few rights.

The tribal people seem to be trapped in a cycle of abject poverty. Almost every man in this tribe fights alcohol addiction; women and young boys drink, too. The landlords take advantage of the weakness and often pay the families with alcohol.

Many people work the whole day only to spend their money on drinking. Children are not sent to schools, but rather seen as extra hands to work. Early marriages take place. Teenage pregnancy is common.

Viewing this situation, the Lord put a great burden in the pastor’s heart. To give the people hope through Christ, Pastor Aliaos began a ministry in 1983 distributing food, clothes and medicine. He conducted awareness programs, and started a children’s home with 10 children to give them food and education.

After 20 years of working in this ministry, Pastor Aliaos had the opportunity to start a child development center through Compassion. The program began with 55 children and now more than 280 children  are registered, including nearly 100 tribal children.

God has brought about an incredible transformation in the lives of the children, their families and this community. The children regularly attend schools. The educational standard of the children has improved. About 40 children participate in sports activities and they have received many prizes in school and higher-level competitions.

This center has a music band of 15 children. Their talents in playing instrumental music attract the attention of many other schools. They now receive invitations from several schools to give special programs.

The way of life for these children has changed so much that nobody would now be able to recognize them as tribal children. Their confidence and dignity has improved.

But as Pastor Alioas served these people, he found something alarming: an increasing rate of suicide among the farmers. The reported reason was economic instability, severe financial crisis, despair and hopelessness.

The farmers faced crop disease, price drops, drought and excess use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Agriculture became an unreliable means of living and the people became the miserable victims of the crisis. Owing to these difficulties, the farmers fell into debt.

People began to take huge loans from banks and toiled very hard in the lands. But their hope was lost as they couldn’t pay back their debts or make any money. From 2002 to 2006, 316 farmers committed suicide.

Hundreds of children lost their fathers and mothers, and wives lost their husbands. The banks began to seize properties with lapsed loan payments. Many people lost their hope for their future, along with their land.

A survey was conducted in the community the child development center serves; 12 people committed suicide in 2008 and 11 in 2009. Among them were parents of three Compassion children.

Wilson, a farmer, who was 48 years old, committed suicide by taking poison in June 2008. He was reputable in the community, innocent and well accepted by his neighbors. He was married and had two sons. Both of them are in the sponsorship program.

Wilson was not able to pay the loans that he had taken from the bank, and he committed suicide. His wife was pregnant. They suffered tremendously, but the church helped them build a house and supported them financially. Now the family is living peacefully.

Rajan, 40 years, committed suicide by hanging himself. He was also married with two children. This family lived in government-allotted colonies, and Rajan worked as a blacksmith. He suffered from epilepsy and was an alcoholic.

Unable to repay the debts nor bear his sickness, he committed suicide. The church gave the family a helping hand in those dark days.

Shiji was a mother of three children. She used to fight with her husband every day after drinking and never used to give money to the family.

Shiju was working as a cook at the development center. Unable to tolerate her husband’s unchanging character and the hardship she underwent, she poured kerosene on herself and burned herself. Her husband was watching and tried to save her, but he also caught fire.

Both of them were rushed to a nearby hospital. Shiju breathed her last at the hospital. Her husband was half-burned but survived. His hands and legs were paralyzed and he cannot walk now. His relatives took one son and one daughter with them. The son is part of of the sponsorship program.

Pastor Alioas’ church also has a Child Survival Program. There are 44 mother and their children in this program. They are taught what it means to be a family and what it means to raise children. The entire community has learned their responsibilities both toward home and society.

Family problems, quarreling among couples, use of bad words, nuisance in community, relationship problems, etc., have decreased. There has been a drastic change in people’s attitudes.

The church has also started income-generation programs to enable the families in debt to make money and thus improve their financial situations. This also helps lower the suicide rate in the region.

The poor women are provided with mushroom seeds so that they can cultivate mushrooms and make money. The church provides them with raw materials for making soaps and selling them. Each poor family is provided with a goat. This goat yields a kid after one year, and in this way the family can raise income.

The women are also taught to make umbrellas. Tailoring classes are conducted. Men are taught to drive vehicles and are provided financial help for getting driving licenses.

However, to make these efforts a complete success, men have to give up drinking, which can cause fighting and violence in the family. With the aim of helping alcoholics, recovery programs are supported. Twenty-one church families have been sent to a treatment center. Follow-up is done. Weekly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are conducted at the development center, and so far alcohol addicts have given up the habit.

With this variety of intervention, Pastor Alioas has been able to help change lives.

“Through Compassion we are able to give them good education. Not only that, we are able to develop their inborn skills and talents. We concentrate on the all-round development: education, economic, social and moral. Through our continued efforts, children learn how to be responsible members of the family as well as the society.”

Compassion has had a lasting influence not only in the lives of the children but throughout the community by helping create responsible parents, helping reduce the suicide rate, bringing people into the saving knowledge of God, strengthening family bonds, and building responsible members of society.

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And although you might not think that theories of international development have much to do with you, they certainly do.

We are compassionate and generous people, and when we hear about a need, we want to help! We want to do something! But our first reactions of how to help may not necessarily be the best ways in which we can help. So understanding how development happens is vital as we seek to do good in this world.

Here are a few things I’ve learned …

At Compassion we want to foster development, not dependence. We want to see long-term change so we don’t focus on shorter-term solutions, like food distributions. Instead, we focus on on equipping children and partners with the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes they need to take control of their own lives.

Ways we can foster development, not dependence are:

Allowing children and our partners to be active in shaping their futures, not passive receivers.

Childhood experiences teach children how they view themselves, and we can teach them to reflect on their experiences to learn how they can change their circumstances.

Limiting what is given away.

Even the poorest of the poor have much to give, such as time and energy. When we focus on just giving to the poor, we undermine what they already have to give rather than empowering them to seek solutions.

Do not do for others what they can do for themselves.

When we try to help a child or a family by doing something for them that they were capable of doing, it pulls the rug out from under them, in a way, sending a subtle message that they aren’t capable. Sweat equity is a great example — give people the opportunity to give what they’ve got to better their lives.

Focusing on partnership.

Relationships are two-way, not one-way. We aren’t the noble benefactors bending down to the helpless poor.

Our partners in the developing world have so much to offer. It’s not a relationship of givers and takers. We must treat and view them truly as partners, not as a means to an end. They aren’t just our outlet for a mission trip or a good story for our do-gooding release. They are people and partners.

Enable local ownership.

If you start a child development center in a community without a local understanding or vision, most likely it will fail. Local ownership is key in successful development.

Think of your own backyard. If a Belgian group came in and told you, “We really think you need to put in these new fancy water pumps, and we’re going to do it,” what would you think? (“Who are these weird Belgians and why are they telling me what to do?” is what I would think …)

Therefore, we have to develop initiatives jointly. Give communities an opportunity to have ownership by allowing them to be deeply involved in developing any engagement. They know their communities; they know their needs; they know their challenges.

So if you travel to see Compassion’s work, please go with an open heart, spend time finding out what our partners’ visions and dreams are. Maybe you want to help build toilets or a church building, but maybe that’s not what they need the most. Come alongside and partner with them. Be a part of their passion and vision for their communities.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

Here’s the answer – straight from the mouth of Tony Neeves, our vice president of international development.

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates

• a safe journey
• all of our flights were generally on schedule and no flights were missed
• all of our luggage arrived at its intended destination
• good Christian travel companions
• a friendly and helpful Compassion Uganda staff to meet us at the airport
• good health for everyone on the trip

We are currently experiencing some problems getting access to the Internet in the hotel. It’s slow and intermittent access. Please pray that the Internet access will improve and we will be able to blog aggressively about Compassion’s work in this beautiful country.

Everyone is in the process of eating breakfast at the hotel. We will be leaving shortly to see some of Compassion’s Christian child development projects. Stay tuned for more updates!

My Account l Sponsor a Child l Help Babies and Moms l Crisis Updates