December December the month to remember... in India

When our city-wide network in Delhi, India, held a Viva Christmas Party a few weeks ago they gave every project attending the chance to perform. Songs, dances and dramas were played out by more than 100 children for the entertainment of their peers, including 13 children from a project that helps young people with autism and other disabilities.

“For these children it was a totally new experience” says Viva India staff member Gary Kamaal. “Not just that they were invited to perform in front of so many people, but to perform alongside other children and be given equal status - that was so amazing and wonderful to them. You could see in their faces they felt so special, and they really loved doing their act.”

Party on, Nepal

Viva Christmas Parties are gearing up around the world. Actually, quite a few have already happened! If you’re getting involved in ‘Your Party, Their Christmas’ or ‘Your Gift, Their Christmas’ you already know that Viva Christmas Parties are not only a blast for kids, but they link vulnerable children up with projects that can provide them with help and support for the rest of their lives. What a reason to celebrate!

In Nepal, though, Viva Christmas Parties haven’t just helped get children connected with projects – they’ve helped make it possible for projects to connect with one another. As in many other places around the world, Nepalese organisations that help children at risk have traditionally tended to keep to themselves. Opening up your management, fundraising and resources to other projects can be a terrifying task. Our partner network CarNet Nepal discovered that Viva Christmas Parties are a great way to develop the trust and rapport between projects that are necessary to form a network.

Party Time!

To most children in the UK, December 25th means a holiday, presents, turkey, stockings and big family gatherings.  But for children all over the developing world it's just one more day to survive -  no presents, feasts or holiday cheer.  If you could throw a Christmas party for thousands of vulnerable children, would you?

We would!

Churches Rebuilding a Slum

I am a bishop with the Assemblies of God church in the slum area of Kisumu, Kenya’s third-largest city. A year ago I attended one of Viva’s Vision Conferences, designed to get pastors involved in mobilising their churches to serve children in their neighbourhoods. In the local language we have a word, mabadkilio, that perfectly describes what’s happened to my ministry: it’s been completely transformed since this conference.

The slum I work in has 250,000 people, two-thirds of whom are under 18. The local government doesn’t provide any services in this slum: people have to leave the city to get health care, and water has to be carried in and sold because there aren’t reliable water pipes. As a result, the poorest often can’t afford to buy water. All the schools are on the outer edge of the slum, because of the high building density in its core. Most families in the slum have four to six people, and the majority of these families are in one-room houses. My church is one of ten operating in the slum.

The first thing my church did after this conference was to join with Viva and the city-wide network in Kisumu, called Arise for Children, and get involved in that community of Christians working on behalf of vulnerable children. I can’t explain how happy I am to be part of the network. All sorts of new opportunities have arisen because of my church’s membership; our church has grown markedly; and the neighbourhood is undergoing changes that are both deep and wide…