Helping child survivors to their feet
A MESSAGE FROM WORLD VISION CANADA
She droops on a plastic chair, near the shelter her family patched together from desperation and found objects. Suldana’s growing body is weak from hunger. Her heart and spirit are running on empty.
Each morning she hikes to the nearby town of Doolow, Somalia, to stand for long hours washing dishes. Most days she eats just one meal. Suldana’s father is blind, so it’s up to the girl to feed the family, including the malnourished younger siblings on the ground behind her. Talk about pressure.
It’s hard to come up with something Suldana hasn’t lost. The family’s livestock – providers of nutrition, income, security and dignity – died in the severe drought Somalia is facing. Home is a memory, abandoned six months ago for this makeshift settlement closer to town and jobs.
Suldana in cruel context
Tragically, Suldana is one of many millions worldwide. By spring global food prices were the highest they’d ever been. Some 276 million people were staring down severe food insecurity.
The children in greatest need live in places confronting a legion of deadly threats. The list includes places like Somalia, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Honduras, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and South Sudan.
In the global relief and development world, we refer to such regions as fragile. They face the combined threats of armed conflict, extreme weather patterns from climate change, economic and political turmoil, plus a lack of security to protect people.
Suldana herself was born in a nation rocked by civil conflict. The year she turned five, some 300,000 Somalis died in famine.Today many are perishing from the worst drought in four decades. There are no social programs to keep children and families safe, nourished and provided with medical care.
How on earth to respond?
For a believer Jesus’ teachings about feeding the poor are always top of mind. We feel called to help and desperately want to. But how can we be His hands and feet in situations so complex, so overwhelming?
As with the good Samaritan, who knew he needed the help of an innkeeper to save someone in crisis, it helps to find a partner.
World Vision’s Raw Hope is a good partner to consider. Raw Hope cares for children in fragile places, providing life-saving essentials like food, water, shelter, medicine and protection. It helps children and families recover and build their futures.
When it comes to food, WorldVision is the largest distribution partner globally for the World Food Programme. Breastfeeding and pregnant mothers, as well as adolescent girls like Suldana, have special nutritional needs, as do babies and young children recovering from extreme malnutrition.
Jesus never said, “For the world was in crisis, and you fixed it.” He said, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.” That’s the very best place to begin. But as adults we can’t leave it there.
It’s important to nurture that call to help the poor in our next generation. That means increasing our children’s sensitivity to the world’s needs while calming their own fears about threats like war. Conversation is a valuable tool. So is prayer.
Download this free resource, 6 Ways to Talk to Children About Conflict and Refugees, today at