Day 19

Water is the most precious commodity on earth. Without it, there can be no life at all. Easy access to clean, safe water should be a guaranteed right. Unfortunately, this is not always so. In many countries, people are forced to travel up to 10 kilometres a day to fetch water for their family. They carry it back home over rough ground and often through dangerous territories where bandits lie in wait to rob them of their water, and anything else of value they have, including the clothes on their backs.

World In Need is working to provide access to water nearer to people’s homes, thus helping to reduce the dangers faced by the water carriers, who are almost exclusively girls. In Sierra Leone, we provided water at the Makeni school, which is not only for the use of students at the school, but for the families who live nearby. This enables girls to have the time to go to school. The water is available free of charge, helping with family finances, and helping to reduce the effects of poverty. 

Day 17

In many parts of the world, access to clean water is not a guaranteed right. To provide water for a family’s needs, women and girls have to travel long distances daily, sometimes as far as 10 kilometres to a well, where they will then pay as much as half the family’s daily income to buy 20 litres of water. They then have to carry this back home, usually on their heads. This puts pressure on their spines and especially their neck, storing up painful and debilitating problems for later life such as arthritis, spondulosis and other degenerative and crippling diseases. It shortens their lives and reduces their effectiveness as working people, both within the home and in the employment market.

While they are carrying water to and fro, they cannot be attending school. Since fetching water is seen as women’s work, this means that girls are frequently denied schooling in societies where their gender already disadvantages them.

World In Need is working to ensure that people are able to access clean water as close as possible to their homes, thus cutting the need for heavy and health-risking lifting, and enabling girls to go to school.

Day 16.

When someone sponsors a child through World In Need, they usually do so in the hope that they can help that child achieve their full potential. Sponsored children go to school and get an education, which equips them for better qualified and better paid jobs as adults. Some have gone on to universities, others have gained apprenticeships. They have become skilled and valuable members of their community, bringing benefits to a society far beyond their own families.

And some will just shine.

One of the children supported by World In Need in Azerbaijan was Nigar (last name?). Nigar lived in Baku with her family, all of them in one room, sharing a toilet with several other family members. Nigar’s sponsorship enabled her to go to a school where it was discovered she had the most amazing talent as a pianist. Thanks to the generosity World In Need supporters, at age 16, she was able to come to England where she competed in the International Young Musician of the Year Competition. She was the youngest competitor there, and was highly commended by the judges, who recommended she be granted scholarship to one of the most prestigious music colleges in the world. 

Yet, without sponsorship, she may never have been given the chance to develop, or even discover the talent within her.

You just never know how much difference your sponsorship will make to someone’s life.

Day 15

In the three years since the Syrian civil war began, tens of thousands have died, many of them children. The UN has stopped updating the death count because it is too dangerous to collect accurate figures but, really, the numbers don’t matter. Each death is a personal tragedy, the loss of a human being and a reason for loved ones to grieve. 

Civilians fare badly in this war of attrition. Many are trapped in the war zones because fighters on one or both sides refuse to let them leave. They are vulnerable to injury from bombs, bullets, shrapnel, and have even endured gas and chemical attack. They have little or no access to food, and some have resorted to eating grass in desperation.

But even when people manage to leave the conflict zone, their troubles are far from over. 4 million people are internally displaced in Syria. They are, in effect, refugees within their own country.  Over two million others have fled to neighbouring countries such as Jordan, the Lebanon and Turkey. Taken together, these two figures mean that more than a third of the Syrian population has now been forced from their homes. 

These people left everything behind – household possessions, clothes, children’s toys. Last winter, one of the coldest on record, they had to cope without blankets and coats. They need money to buy supplies, but are not allowed to take jobs to earn that money.  

World In Need has raised money to buy much needed supplies for refugees in Jordan. Please pray for Syrian refugees and for our work in Jordan.

Day 14

Thailand has a vast drug problem and this is especially co in the southern part of the country. Many efforts are made to tackle this, helping people break their addictions and get on the road to recovery. However, getting someone off drugs is only the first step. Next, they must stay drug free, and that’s the hard part.

Many drug users don’t have the skills to find jobs and support themselves. Without work and the self-esteem that comes from providing for themselves, it is all too easy to slip back into drug use.

World In Need is developing a drug rehab centre on five acres of land in Southern Thailand. The recovering men and women at the centre work on the land, producing two or even three harvests a year, which are then sold in local markets and the money raised used to support the centre and its work. The people learn skills and find work, and the centre largely sustains itself.

Please pray for Thailand. 

Day 13

Sponsorship means a lot to children in southern Uganda. One of our workers, Albert, tells us that the children often call their sponsors Mum and Dad. They value not just the financial help and the chance to go to school, but also the knowledge that somebody cares and loves them. For some of the children, this is not something they have experienced before.

Albert himself was able to finish his education thanks to a World In Need sponsor. After spending a year as a volunteer worker in England, he has now returned to Uganda and is working to assist our southern Uganda representative, John Kukuriza.  

Albert wrote a letter of thanks to all sponsors recently, in which he said, “all sponsors who pray, communicate and support children – you are heroes and surely God honours such work.”

Sponsorship changes lives, again and again and again. It provides opportunities that would otherwise be denied and ensures that people are not held back simply because they were born in poverty.

If you’d like to know more please go to our website: 

www.worlineed.co.uk

Day 11

Child slavery is an evil of epic proportions and should not exist in the twenty first century. That it does, taints us all.

There are usually three sides to the triangle of suffering that is child slavery.

Side two is the child. Taken from their homes, very young children are forced to work long hours doing menial tasks, and are often forced to do work too heavy or strenuous for their little bodies. While they are working, they are unable to go to school and learn the skills they will need to build a life as adults. They become uneducated unskilled adults themselves and the cycle begins again.

World in Need works to ensure all children get the childhood they deserve, including access to education. Through child sponsorship, we enable them to be children, and we give them the grounding they need to become adults who can care for themselves and be of value to their entire communities.

Day 9, Thursday 13th of March

Some people in the developing world must travel several miles daily to access clean water. This is usually women’s work. Girls as young as eight walk to wells where they pay a hefty part of their family’s income to fill twenty litre drums, which they then carry home. It’s back breaking, time consuming work, robbing them of their childhood. It’s also a major reason why they lose out on their education. After the water has been collected, there is simply no time left to go to school.

World In Need is working to ensure that communities have better, closer access to clean water that they can afford, such as our project to put a well at the Makeni school in Sierra Leone.

Bible reading: Psalm 107:35-38

Day eight - 12 of March

In many places, girls are not as important as boys. Families who cannot afford to educate all their children often give the boys schooling while girls stay at home. And yet, educated women have a profound effect on everyone around them, often far more so than her brothers.

When a woman is educated, her family fares better. Infant mortality decreases and children are healthier and better nourished. Able to help them with their homework, an educated mother has children who are more likely to do well themselves.

World In Need actively encourages education for women and girls. We know that one girl in the classroom today can lift a whole community out of despair tomorrow.

Please pray: for the equal rights for girls and boys. 

Bible reading: 1 Timothy 5:1-3 

Day seven - 11th of March

Education is the key to the treasures of a lifetime. Educated people can access better jobs with better pay, which in turn means they can support themselves and do not need to rely on aid.

They become doctors, teachers, engineers or lawyers, which in turn benefits their entire communities.

Yet, too often, the education that can provide all these things is denied to children who need it most: those from low income families.

That’s why World In Need makes it a condition of sponsorship that a sponsored child attends school. Through the help we give them now, we change the future from one of low expectations to one of fulfilled potential and hope. 

Prayer: Please pray for the children on our sponsorship programme and those hoping to find sponsors in the near future, for those who sponsor our children, for the schools World In Need supports in various countries, that the quality of education their students receive will make a vast difference to many lives. For those who teach, sometimes in intolerable conditions.

Other ways you can help: Sponsoring children, supporting fund raising efforts.

Bible reading: Proverbs 13:13-15

Day six - 10th of March

In Kenya, children wander the streets. Ask them why they’re not in school and they say they cannot afford to go.

Attendance at Government-run schools is free of charge but certain other expenses must be met before a child is permitted to join the class: compulsory uniforms, school supplies, fees for the end of year exams, which must be paid at the beginning of the course. These things mean the “free” education is, in reality, beyond the reach of many.

World In need believes education is the most important gift a child can receive. That’s why it is a condition of sponsorship that all our children must attend school regularly, and it’s why we’ve set up the Nancy George Academy in Soy, Northern Kenya.

Bible reading: Mark 10:13-15 (Suffer the little children to come unto me)

Prayer: For the school, its growth, construction and equipping needs, for the teachers and pupils who attend, that more children will receive a life changing education through it.

Other ways you can help: Running a school is not cheap. Fundraising events and activities take place throughout the year to help with the costs. Please support these events if you can.

Or why not host an event of your own?

Many of the children at the school are sponsored through World In Need. This means their fees and costs are guaranteed to be paid and child, school and family all benefit from the knowing the future is certain. There are others, though, still looking for sponsors. Our sponsorship team would love to hear from you, by phone or email, and will gladly answer any questions you may 

have.

Day five - 9th of March

Psalm 42

Day Four - 8th pf March

Why sponsor a child? In the developing world, children often need to work to help support their families. They do mundane tasks that bring in the barest minimum, but those small amounts make a huge difference to their families. 

With a regular income from sponsorship, they can go to school instead. This enables them to work towards a better future of skilled employment and better wages, breaking the cycle of poverty and helplessness.

Read about the impact of child sponsorship here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22472455

Please pray: for the children sponsored by World In Need in 12 countries throughout the world. For children still needing help, that sponsors will be found for them, …

Through World In Need’s sponsorship programme, you can sponsor a child for £22 a month. That’s 72 pence a day, less than the price of a packet of crisps. 

Bible reading: Matthew 25:31-46

Day Three - 7th March 2014

Listed as the most dangerous city on earth (http://zeenews.india.com/slideshow/world-s-most-dangerous-cities-top-10_49.html), Kabul is a city that has been mired in conflict for decades. The World In Need Children’s Day Care Centre provided a safe haven where children could safely play, learn and be children. In Summer 2013, it was forced to close but we are now looking to open smaller day care centres in several areas of the city, thus cutting the need for children to make long dangerous journeys from their homes and minimising the risks they face.

Please pray: for the safety of children in Kabul and wider Afghanistan, that they can grow up in as normal and safe an environment as possible. For the day care centres, those setting them up and running them, and those using them. For the combatants, that they will turn away from violence and find better ways to resolve their differences. For the quality of life to improve for the residents of the city.

Bible reading: Habakkuk 3:17-19

Day Two - 6th March 2014

Since the conflict in Syria began, some 6.5 million Syrians have become refugees. The Zataari refugee camp in Jordan is home to so many people, it has become the fourth largest city in the country. Many are traumatised by what they have been through, and what they have witnessed. Unable to work or even leave the camp, they rely on aid. Children are missing their education, dooming the next generation to a life of penury and missed opportunities.

Please pray: for the refugees and those who are trying to help them. Pray for the children, that they will recover from experiences that should never touch childhood. Pray for the Syrian nation and the men of violence, that they can resolve their differences and peace can be restored.

Bible reading: Psalm 22

Day One - 5th March 2014

In September 2013, All Saints Church in Peshawar was rocked by explosions. Two suicide bombers inflicted mass casualties on the congregation, killing 130 and wounding many more.  Sadly, this is not a rare occurrence in a city where the Taliban has a strong presence.

Many of the dead are the family breadwinners and their dependents now need support if they are to avoid a future of poverty, lost opportunities and dashed dreams.

Please pray: for all hurt and bereaved by the bombings. For peace between neighbours, for love and tolerance. For those whose hearts are filled with hate, that love will find a way in. For those working to help the people of Peshawar, that they will be kept safe.

Bible reading, Psalm 27.