The sum of the parts: what working together for children really means!

Have you ever had to study for a particularly hard exam, spending all night awake, drinking Colombia out of coffee and racking your brains over one particular question you just don’t seem to get? And how many new mums have felt so desperate when bedtime arrives and their tiny infant just doesn’t seem to want to settle down and go to sleep? “I should know what my child needs!” might race through your mind.

There are many moments in life when we feel alone in the face of a certain problem. So what do we do? Well, naturally, we would seek out the advice of someone who’s been in a similar situation. And how often do we actually find that we are not alone; that many of our classmates have found that topic difficult, or that all new mums have felt frustrated at some point? Someone might even suggest a simple solution, “Have you tried swaddling?” that suddenly makes our lives that much brighter.

Miguel's dream

“Life is not easy, and as children we have faced many people treading on our dreams. But with my songs I am saying that whoever you are and whatever has happened to you, you can live your dreams.”

Miguel Arevalos has helped to lead several nationwide campaigns against child abuse, he is a singer and songwriter for a local band and he will soon begin presenting his own TV show, broadcast to 150,000 people in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Miguel is also just about to celebrate his 15th birthday.

4-14 European Prayer Conference: empowering youth through prayer.

“Seeing the synergy between prayer and activism was a great awakening!”

Our International Prayer Co-ordinator, Chrissie, recently had the privilege of seeing what children can accomplish for their nations when you just give them the chance.

Friday 18th - Tuesday 21st February witnessed the 1st European 4-14 Consultation of Children in Transformational Ministry, hosted by Viva and Hope for Europe. 4-14 gets its name from a variation on the 10/40 Window theme. It refers to the fact that children between the ages of 4 and 14 are the most open and receptive to every form of spiritual and developmental input.

Chrissie says, “This is an opportune window for a previously silenced group of people to become key figures of transformational ministry. God is calling us to alter the way we view children and to respond to their importance and rightful place in his kingdom.”

Uganda Elections: the results are in, but what does this mean for children?

After much campaigning, debate and speculation, Yoweri Museveni has won the Ugandan Presidential Elections for the fourth time in a row. But what does this mean for 57% of Uganda’s population – its children...?

Simon says ... keep children safe!

Throughout the years of my childhood I played the game ‘Simon says’ hundreds of times. You know – Simon says wave your arms in the air, Simon says stick out your tongue... But never once did I play it as part of a lesson on sexual and physical abuse.

Just before Christmas I visited a school in Manchay (a district in the desert-like hills above Lima, Peru) that is using all kinds of games, songs and stories to teach children about the value of their bodies. On the day that I was there I arrived just as a class of 10-year olds were finishing off a fairly chaotic and laughter-filled game of 'Simon says' (Simón dice in Spanish) and then watched as the teacher proceeded to relate the game to real life. 

Helping Churches Respond to War

As Viva’s International Prayer Co-ordinator, I get to travel around to conferences and events worldwide, as well as helping local children get involved in prayer right here in Oxford and throughout England. I’ve recently come back from Sri Lanka, where I was a keynote speaker for a conference on intercessory prayer for Asia. Needless to say it was exciting!


Viva doesn’t have an official network in Sri Lanka, but we’re building relationships with projects and churches around this beautiful island that want to work together to address the enormous needs facing Sri Lankan children in the aftermath of decades of war and ever-present poverty. After my speaking engagement in Colombo I did two days of workshops with children’s workers (and children!) to help the adults learn to involve children in prayer, teaching them to hear God for themselves from a young age.

Abandoned Babies Part III - Interview

Viva interviews Rogers Mbaziira, who works with our city-wide network CRANE in Kampala, Uganda. Part of Rogers’ job is to work with a group of network members – churches, homes for abandoned babies and other projects – that are committed to putting abandoned babies into local families. (Learn more about this group, called Families For Children.) That means lots of networking between projects and churches and families, with some interesting results. Go ahead, listen in...

Viva: Rogers, you have an amazing job. Can you tell us what your normal day looks like?

RM: I used to visit the foster families a lot, but now more of my time is spent on ‘mobilisation’. Most parents call in and some email FFC for advice. I spend most of my time replying to them, and often that involves referring them to different agencies or projects that can help. That’s why it’s so important to work as a network, because we have these other contacts we can put them in touch with. 

Running for Their Lives

Remember this? “Imagine walking down an alley in the red light district of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city – filled with brothels, karaoke bars and massage parlours. Lined up on each doorstep are countless pairs of shoes belonging to the women forced to work inside. Looking closer you can see that a sickening number of these shoes are very small, belonging to the little girls who are either being raised by prostitutes or have been forced to become sex workers themselves.”

Viva posted that back in May. But long before that my heart was broken by the hundreds of thousands of girls in Cambodia who are in this exact situation. I don’t even want to imagine it. But child sexual exploitation in Cambodia is something the world can’t avoid imagining. We need to be confronted with it, address it, end it, and then help to heal the girls who have gone through it.

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…

You Voted for it: Helping Pakistan Heal

Last week Viva posted a poll asking our readers who they think should aid Pakistani flood victims. Because we allowed you to pick more than one option, the results sound funny:

66% thought wealthy governments should respond to the flood;

53% said international non-governmental organisations should be providing aid;

80% thought the global church has a responsibility to help;

and 73% voted that local agencies should respond.

It's interesting to note that in no case did 100% of people agree on an answer: not everybody thinks rich governments have the responsibility; and we don't all agree that the global church should respond either. Maybe this helps explain why the international response to the disaster has been so slow.

You voted for it: Child-Friendly Churches

In last week's poll we asked you how child-friendly your church is.  About two thirds said their church was "Very friendly!" and the other third thought theirs was "Pretty friendly".  But what actually makes a church child-friendly?

Viva believes a child-friendly church is one that treats children as an integral part of its congregation, and where children are invited and encouraged to worship and serve just the same as adults (but with a child-friendly twist).  Programmes like Sunday school are great for teaching children about God, but Sunday school can't be the only thing a church offers its children.