The Impact of Child Sponsorship
By: Heidi Otis
In 2005 I had the privilege of participating in a mission trip with Serve the Children to Liberia. Once there I fell in love with the people, especially the children at our All God’s Children Schools. They were so grateful and thankful to have the chance for an education in a country that was trying desperately to recover from a horrendous civil war. These children had known nothing about a peaceful world, yet they were filled with the joy of the Lord. While I was there, I met a young teenager named Obediah and began sponsoring him. He was a serious boy, and I was impressed by his hard-working attitude. He helped us unload heavy boxes of books to create the first school library at our school in Sinkor. He also laughed loudly every time I screamed at a mouse!
After returning home I could not stop thinking about the people I had met, so the next summer I went again. This time we were doing a creative writing workshop and we were each helping individual students. Alex began talking with me about the troubles his family had during the war. His father was a police officer and was sent far away to work. This left his unemployed mother to raise her six boys alone in a place where resources were scarce. My husband is a police officer so we had a lot of discussions about Liberian law and education. I began sponsoring him also.
Through Serve the Children our family was able to provide an education for these two boys through Junior High and on into High School, where they both graduated. Both Obediah and Alex have gone on to college and have received their bachelor’s degrees. Now they are young men working for non-profits that are making improvements in their country. Obediah has been volunteering with an organization raising money for wells and filters for clean water. Alex has been traveling around to villages in the bush, many of which are days away from Monrovia. There he takes water samples and brings them back for testing in a lab, to see what bacteria or diseases are in the water. Alex writes up reports on the results and locations of the areas that need clean water. These reports are then sent on to non-governmental organizations so they can prioritize well development in these rural villages.
Serve the Children has provided thousands of poor and underserved children with opportunities for an education. Now those children are adults working to improve their beautiful country. Sponsoring these boys has been such a rewarding and inspiring experience for me as well. You too can be a part of providing a future for a child in Liberia.
Flourish, Planting Seeds of Life
Do you know what the term “flourish” means? Personally, I do not use this word often. But it has a very powerful meaning if you look it up. It means to “grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment.” Some similar words are “grow, thrive, prosper, do well and develop.”
We chose this word as our theme for our October 20, 2018 auction, “Flourish, Planting Seeds of Life” because it perfectly illustrates what Serve the Children does.
We help children grow in a very healthy environment, surrounded by people who care about them. We offer education opportunities to children who do not have free educational choices like we do here in the United States. Our facilities offer a safe environment to allow children to flourish as our staff gives them hope by providing an education that will improve their lives. They are growing into educated adults even though many of their parents cannot read or write. They are thriving.
Look at some of our examples of providing a healthy environment to grow in:
- In Liberia and India, we teach English, Math, Social Studies, History, Science and other subjects to provide the children with a well-rounded education.
- In Zambia, we offer a quality early education program in English, giving students a head start in school readiness.
- In 2017, we started teaching computer skills to our children in India and in September 2018, we will start teaching computer skills to the children at our Sinkor school in Liberia.
- This summer, in Liberia, we will provide vocational training to some of our older kids, teaching them how to make furniture to provide them with a career option.
- We are starting our fourth tailoring (sewing) class in Mumbai, teaching women who live in a local slum how to sew so they can have a better future and provide for their families. Many of them currently support themselves by collecting rags from the dump to sell. While the moms are learning a new trade, their children are in our school learning how to read and write.
- In Zambia, we address the problem of high child malnutrition rates through our daily feeding program at the school. By developing a local business to raise chickens and sell the eggs, we are also changing the local economy by providing jobs and training other egg farmers while bringing desperately needed food security to the community.
- In all three countries, we provide medical help to children who are sick and have no access to medical care or cannot afford it. This allows the children to develop and have a healthy future.
We are providing hope and a future to children and families in a healthy environment and they are flourishing. Why? Because you care enough to pray for them, donate, or sponsor a child for $25 per month. Your giving makes flourishing possible.
On June 12, 2018, five of us leave for
Liberia for two weeks. John, Rondell, Ricky, Shaun and I will be teaching first aid to our staff and older students. We will also be setting up 40 laptop computers so the teachers can start learning how to use them over the summer and teach their kids how to use them starting in the fall. We will spend a lot of time playing and hanging out with our staff and kids at both schools. Flourish; we will be helping our staff and kids grow and develop in a healthy environment.
Do you want to come to India with me in November for 2 weeks and see how our children are flourishing? The team leaves the day after Thanksgiving (Friday, November 23rd) and returns two weeks later. We will spend some time in Mumbai supporting our staff and students there and the rest of the time at our school in Lasina. The cost will be about $2,500. This includes travel, meals and housing. This trip will rock your life. Come andflourish with us, and see our staff and kids flourish.
– Dr. Doug Collier
Liberia Computer Project
Hi, I’m John and I wanted to share a little about what the team and I will be doing this year in Liberia. We will be bringing in laptops to help kick-start a computer lab at our Sinkor School in Monrovia.
Our flagship school is in the Sinkor (pronounced ‘sin-core’) district, smack-dab on the beach, just outside the downtown district of Liberia’s capital. Nestled by the beach, Sinkor is truly a beautiful area. Every day, hot, sandy ocean air blows inland, swirling throughout the halls, into classrooms to tickle toes and to cool down the sweltering concrete rooms where class is held. This constant gale brings a refreshing cool as well as a salty glaze to the campus. Looking closer, everything seems to be passing through various stages of corrosion, from the engine of the Jeep that sits patiently nearby, to the concrete walls that sag near the shore; wear and tear are a part of life. This is not an ideal place to plant a computer classroom, but this is where our students are and this is where they will learn the ropes.
Salt and sand are fine if you’re a student but not if you’re a computer. The computers of Liberia have an interesting, unsung story, one that boils simply down to survival. If the conditions aren’t enough to corrode away the sensitive components, the chance of damage, theft, or worse, neglect, is all too real. This is partly why you won’t see too many fancy electronics in Liberian classrooms. And while corrosion is tough, it pales in comparison to the bottom-line reason you don’t see even mundane technology throughout the halls of most Liberian schools. The country is too poor.
These kids we teach are smart. We are providing an opportunity for computer-literacy with this project. What Liberia needs is Liberians at the helm, armed with knowledge to help shape their communities. Serve the Children is empowering the next generation of professionals. This year, we will be setting up roughly 40 laptop computers at this beach-front school. We will teach typing, how to use Microsoft’s productivity suite of applications, such as Word and PowerPoint, and we will even teach some introductory HTML. The teachers will receive this training, then they will build their lesson plans to teach our students computer skills.
It’s my hope and prayer that the training we provide will help advance these students’ careers and broaden their spheres of influence, helping bring hope back to their country. Our team is aware of the challenges surrounding a project like building a computer lab from scratch. With proper care and maintenance, the laptops should last a long time. With the right safety precautions, we shouldn’t lose any machines to would-be thieves. We will set up the teachers and students for success, then pass the baton off for them to run the show. I’m confident that our friends there won’t just like the new computers; they will fall in love and excel.
Sinkor is truly a special area and I hope you get a chance to visit our students and staff there, salt and all.
– John Keay
Steve Jones, one of the founders of Serve the Children, visited our Liberia schools in July 2017. The lack of any computer skills, access to computers or computer education for our students or staff shocked him, since we in America are so used to using electronics in every facet of our lives. He returned to the United States determined to change this. He spoke to businesses and individuals and personally raised over $12,000 to start the process of acquiring 40 laptops and software to ship to our schools in Liberia. We have purchased the computers, have almost finished updating their operating systems, and can ship them to Liberia soon. Our goal is to have the laptops in Liberia before the STC mission team arrives in June so the team can help set them up and start training the teachers. By the time our students return from summer vacation in September, the teachers will be ready to start teaching them computer skills. We also plan to open up a night school for adults in the neighborhood who would like to pursue a computer education. This will increase their chance of employment and provide a better source of income for their families.
Can you help? Our goal is to raise an additional $10,000 to pay for a generator, additional tables and chairs, training costs and upgrading a room to be a computer lab. 100% of the funds raised will go to Liberia and are tax deductible. You can send us a check, call in your credit card info to our office, or use the PayPal button on our website. Please mark all donations, “Computer Project.” Thank you for your continued support.
– Dr. Doug Collier
Hope and a Future
Consider this list of some hopes that may cross your mind:
I hope my car starts today
I hope I feel better
I hope I get a raise
I hope my kids have a good day at school
Consider these statements of hope that may come across children’s minds in developing countries such as Liberia, Zambia, or India:
I hope I can go to school today
I hope my parents find work today
I hope I get to eat today
When I return to Liberia in June 2018 and India in November 2018 (want to come with me?), children and staff members will ask me about their sponsors. Many children will come up to me and show me the last letters and pictures they received from their sponsors. I love these times. Sponsorship is more than a picture on your refrigerator. It is a personal relationship with a child who needs your help.
When you sponsor a child or teacher, you give them hope, because they know someone in the world cares for them enough to help them work toward a brighter future. And because they have this hope and help, they also want to make a difference in the lives of others.
We see this in the children who have graduated from our programs. Many of them come back to help the schools in Liberia with mentoring, financial help and volunteering to help with building upkeep. I run into them around Monrovia and they are excited to tell me what they are doing and that without our schools, that they would not be where they are now.
You can sponsor a child for $25 per month or a teacher for $100 per month. A child sponsorship guarantees a spot at one of our schools and helps pay for our costs. We have very little US expenses so the majority of all funds raised go right to help those we serve.
Many Serve the Children donors give a general donation each month using PayPal or their credit card, or by sending a check. We also have over 130 people who sponsor a specific person. In what way would you like to partner with us to give children hope and a future? Every donation is appreciated!
Serve the Children exists to improve the future of children by meeting their educational, physical and emotional needs in a Biblically based environment. Thank you so much for providing hope and a future to our children and staff in Liberia, Zambia and India.
Dr. Doug Collier, CPA
Karan’s Story!
Meet Karan, a boy from our Emmanuel Daycare Center who is 14 years old and lives with his father, mother, two younger brothers & one younger sister. His father is a rag picker who walks from house to house collecting garbage, sorting plastic and metal items to sell to the recycling plant. His mother stays home due to illness. Karan works to support his family so is unable to attend school. He is the bread winner of his family at age 14 because he is left with no other options; even though child labor is illegal in India. The family lives in a small tarpaulin covered hut without flooring, a bathroom or toilet.
Karan very regularly attends our Daycare Center in the morning but can only stay for an hour to study before he has to leave for work. He has a desire to learn to read and write but due to circumstances he has been unable. The small amount he earns ensures that there is food for his family and they do not starve like most others. This family cannot afford to put children in school or provide clothing or shoes. These kids wear old clothes donated by our friends from local Churches. Karan (he is on the left in the picture) is just one of the children that received the gift of socks and a new pair of shoes because of your giving. The new shoes have such a significant impact on these children who have nothing and work so hard. They are filled with joy and can travel safely. There are so many children like this and Karan is just one of them. Our Emmanuel Daycare Center is a safe caring place for these precious children to be loved and supported even if it is only for an hour. Karan has been given hope and knows he is loved.
Happy New Year!
Serve the Children has so many things to be thankful for as 2017 closes and 2018 begins. Your donations, prayers, and volunteer support achieved many things in 2017. I love the fact that during the busy Christmas season, many of you participated in Giving Tuesday where we raised over $4,000 to purchase shoes and socks for children from the slums of Mumbai. As you can see in the picture above the kids were overjoyed about their new shoes. Your generosity at year end just blew me away!
Check out some of our goals for 2018. Maybe you would like to donate to one of these projects. Any amount is appreciated and helps make a difference in the lives of children and their parents in Liberia, India and Zambia. Perhaps you would consider sponsoring a child for only $25 per month – giving them hope and a future in 2018.
2018 Goals:
- Have 70 people attend our Second Annual Chocolate on Mission event on January 14th at 6.30pm – see below for details.
- Convert the 3rd Floor at our Sinkor school to a computer lab – $13,000 has been raised for this project
- Complete construction of 3 more classrooms at our 15 Gate school for a junior high program – $12,000 project; most of these funds have been raised by the PTA, staff and teachers in Liberia but we still need about $5,000 to complete the project
- Establish a school furniture production site at our Sinkor school and train students to construct furniture as a career path and build desks, chairs and tables for our school and other schools
- Construct a small building in the slum area of Mumbai for about $40,000 to provide basic education to children and teach their parents a trade
- Purchase 10 sewing machines for $1,500 for teaching women how to sew as a career in Mumbai
- Expand our education program in Zambia to the 1st grade
- Increase our sponsorship program with more children from Liberia, India and Zambia
- Raise $100,000 at our Fall Auction on October 20, 2018 – mark this date on your calendar!
Thank for you for all your continued support. We are looking forward to a successful 2018, giving hope and a future to children in Liberia, India and Zambia because of all of you!
Making A Difference Around The World
The byproduct of war is the death of dreams for those who are considered collateral damage. Children are often the targets of such hopelessness. Serve the Children has sent a few volunteers into countries where war is a way of life. Most recently, we have sent volunteers into (unnamed), a country where children have been exposed to terrible things; crucifixions, gang rape, assault, threats of harm, and death. They have witnessed the rape and death of their parents and loved ones. They have been forced from their homes under cover of darkness.
Our volunteers are working with these children in a refugee zone to reduce the impact of profound catastrophic trauma by providing counseling and by developing comfort rooms. These rooms are in schools and will allow children to stay as close to their ‘normal’ schedule as possible while securing a physical environment that supports their little bodies’ needs for protection and care. The rooms will have equipment that includes small child size bunk beds, headphones to block out threatening noises, weighted vests, manual dexterity tools to reduce anxiety and therapy tools to help children communicate …when there are no words to describe their horror.
These measures are designed to help each child process their memories, supporting them when their anxiety is overwhelming, and to assist them in creating a place in their heart for their dreams to grow.
Each comfort room costs approximately $2,500 to fully furnish. If you would like to help provide comfort rooms, please note “Comfort Rooms” on your donation.
Zambia
Serve the Children will now be partnering with Pure Nard Ministries to help continue the amazing work that is being done in Mungu, Zambia.
Pure Nard Ministries is located in Mungu, a rural community south of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka. The preschool has three classes; a baby class (3 year olds), a middle class (4 and 5 year olds), and a reception (which we know as kindergarten, for 6 and 7 year olds). It is an English-medium school (classes are taught in English), giving a head-start to some of the world’s poorest as they gain school readiness. The school serves its children and their families by providing an education, but it also serves the community by providing a meal for students and by drawing families into the church. Future goals include adding classes up to grade seven, preparing students for the grade seven exams, and adding secondary school grades.
#Giving Tuesday 2017
Today is Giving Tuesday, join Serve the Children in this global day of giving. Celebrate the kick off of your holiday season by joining people from all over the world sharing in the joy of giving back.
A recent survey found that 97% of the children in the Mumbai slums have no shoes. The roads and sanitation are extremely poor, and the children have to walk over rocks, sticks, glass, nails and other harmful objects. Many of the children coming to our Daycare Center have cuts and other foot injuries that result in infections and diseases because of the unsanitary conditions.
This #GivingTuesday, our goal is to raise $3,000 for shoes for the children we serve. With every $10 donated we can buy a pair of shoes and 2 pairs of socks for a child. With $3000 we can touch the lives of 300 children and bless them with shoes and socks. Join us in being a part of giving a gift that brings health, safety and joy in the lives of these children.
Partner with us to bring Shoes For All Feet in Mumbai this holiday season.
Giving Thanks
Psalm 146:2 I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Thanksgiving will soon be upon us. It seems to come earlier each year. What are you thankful for? Your job, your health, your family? These are good things to be thankful for. I can look at all these things and turn my praises to the true and living God and His Son Jesus Christ, recognizing where all good things come from. Here at Serve the Children, we are thankful for many things. Much of what
we accomplished during 2017 is due to your financial and prayer support. Your generosity has helped us give hope and a future to children in
Liberia and India.
2017 Accomplishments include:
- We raised over $90,000 at our annual auction.
- We graduated our first group of women tailors from our school in a Mumbai slum.
- We got a grant from The Netherlands to begin a vocational training program at our Sinkor school teaching furniture building in 2018.
- We have over 175 sponsored teachers and students; this is the most we have ever had!
- We sent an 8-member mission team to Liberia and they used puppets to teach the students about Jesus. They also taught art and other subjects.
- We sent a 5-member mission team to India, where we taught computer skills to children who have never touched a computer before. We also taught phonics, art and other subjects.
- We opened a nursery school in a Mumbai slum, teaching children of all ages how to read and write.
Thank-you for your faithful and continuous support. Your donations are making a difference. We have great plans for 2018 and we are glad you are on our team.
Dr. Doug Collier
President, Serve the Children
2017 Auction Was a Great Success
Thank you for all your support at Serve the Children’s 14th Annual Dinner & Dessert Auction!
On October 7th we raised over $90,000! We are so thankful for your attendance and your giving. Because of your generosity 14 children received sponsorship and many more will be supported through the following kinds of projects:
- Medical supplies for our nurse to treat our children and staff
- School supplies for our children and staff
- Replacement of desks and chairs in our schools
- Equipment for our computer lab
- Tailoring and Nursing Aid Classes – Because of your support we can offer young women vocational training as nursing assistants in a nine-month course or a four month training course in tailoring. These women will have the opportunity to achieve the dream of supporting themselves and their families with a consistent source of income.
- Computer and Small Engine Repair School – In India we are able to offer computer skills to open doors for those students to achieve their dreams. For our more mechanically minded students, we are also able to offer classes for them to learn small engine repair to obtain a sustainable income and financial independence.
Back to School
As a mom of school aged children, September is always a busy month. A lot goes into making sure each kid is ready. Between shopping for school supplies to ordering new school clothes and meeting the new teachers at the school, it can be a little hectic. Like most of us, I want my kids to be well prepared and have a great start of the year. Because, if the start is great, they have more opportunity to learn and grow as young people. As I have been busy and focused on my own sweet children this season I have also
found myself thinking of the kids in India and Liberia. My children headed to school with their new clothes, backpacks full of supplies, new shoes and full lunch boxes. This is not true across the world.
Our school in India started in July and the schools in Liberia are starting soon. The children we help do not have new shoes or full lunchboxes but they do get a great education because of your donations. When All God’s Children’s first school opened in 1997 in Liberia, the biggest dream the kids could think of was to become a taxi driver. So much has changed as the young people we serve have hope. Now the children in our schools want to be Nurses, Politicians and Teachers to make a difference in their community. This is a powerful testament to the difference that sponsorship and donations make in the lives of these children, giving them an opportunity to have a different future.
In America, heading back to school is like a holiday that all of the department stores set up displays and decorations for. In Liberia and India it is a precious gift that it is not the norm for children to experience. My children have been given many opportunities for education in America and have choices of where they can attend. These kids in India and Liberia only have the opportunity to attend school due to generous financial support to Serve the Children. I think today of the little girl, Tenneh in Liberia that I sponsor and am thankful she now has hope for her future and can dream like my own children. I encourage you to sponsor a child and help make their dream of being a Teacher, Nurse of Politician a reality.
Making a Difference in India
We are here in India with the rest of the Serve the Children mission team. We can tell you firsthand that we are providing quality education for the children at our school. Great instructors are teaching English, math, science, and more to a lot of eager minds. But this is not our only goal. We also want to graduate students who continue to make a difference in their families and communities while they improve their own lives.
In addition to the government-required subjects, we teach life skills, including:
- Sewing
- Embroidery
- Cooking
- Gardening
- Animal husbandry
- Caring for the environment (everything is recycled)
- Barbering skills
We are also making a difference in the lives and futures of the poor and marginalized in Mumbai. Please watch these short videos produced by John Keay (less than a minute each) featuring two women, Maria and Bharti, who graduated from our sewing program recently. They now support their families by sewing clothes for neighbors and friends. Danny and Glory meet with them regularly to see how they are doing and share Christ with them. Maria made the grocery bags with the STC logo that you can purchase at our office or at the October 7th auction.