September 2017
fromthestreets
Changing children’s lives Pavement Project children are just like all other children. They have dreams about what they want to be when they grow up. They have friends. They have likes and dislikes. They are full of wonder and curiosity. Unlike many children though, they have also faced extreme situations, trauma and neglect of all kinds. Some of them carry unbelievable sadness. Without help and intervention their lives will be shaped by the terribly negative things they have seen and experienced. The green bag has a 90% success rate in measurably improving children’s self-worth, putting them in a much better position to overcome trauma, and take advantage of education and other opportunities.
The bag that transforms Maycon* was first counselled with the green bag at 14. He grew up in the Barreira do Vasco, a favela located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As a child Maycon lived with his mother and stepfather, attending school at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church. It was during this time that he first heard of the love God has for him. This was a concept that Maycon really struggled with – he didn’t feel loved, and couldn’t see evidence of it in his life and experiences. Over time he became less and less interested in the church, until eventually he left completely, and turned to drugs and alcohol. ➤
Pavement Project Pavement Project is a unique Bible-based counselling process that equips children-at-risk workers all over the world to raise children’s self-worth and restore a sense of hope for the future.
Return to church After a few years, Maycon was invited to return to church. He was sceptical at first but he attended. This time something was different, he was offered a counselling session with the green bag. “Every detail I heard in the Bible story was like my story,” he says. “My day-to-day, what I’d lived, and was still living. God really spoke to me. There he was, opening my eyes, and showing me that he has the power to turn my situation around. “The thing that really made me take notice was the story of children who wanted to meet Jesus. They wanted to get closer to him, and were stopped by men, but not by Jesus. He says that children are welcome in his Kingdom. I just knew in my heart, in that moment, that I was welcome in his Kingdom too”. With continued discipleship and his new-found faith, Maycon was able to transform his life. Today, he is 17, an athlete, and has just completed his second year of high school. “Now I have peace, I live knowing God and have found a new kind of love,” he says. “My life was aimless before my experience with the green bag. I was going through difficulties and was putting myself in danger. Just as Jesus transformed my life, he has the power to transform the lives of my friends and other kids. “I’m so grateful for the experience I had with the green bag, and I know that it will be helpful to so many other young people. I have never been
happier – and it’s all down to knowing God!” *Names have been changed.
Making Pave Every day stories are told of children – and workers – who have experienced the love of Jesus transforming their lives through Pavement Project. The green bag has become a symbol of God’s love for those that encounter it, and is currently being used all over the world, including in Brazilian favelas, Nairobi slums, Middle East refugee camps, in the war-wrecked Democratic Republic of Congo, and in areas formerly controlled by drug lords in Guatemala. But what does it take to keep this truly life changing project running? People make it possible Pavement Project would not be possible without the support of our partners worldwide. Working with people on the ground who know the area, children, and local culture, and who have pre-existing relationships with the community is key to introducing the green bag. We have 330 partners including Compassion, Oasis, Tearfund, Viva Network and World Vision, all of whom have made the green bag an integral part of their work.
You can secure a bag for a
ment Project possible Bag sponsorship Over 350 bags have been sponsored in the last two years in Africa, Brazil, India, the Middle East and Spanish-speaking Latin America. Thank you to everyone who sponsored a bag – whether as an individual, a group of friends, as part of a small group or as a church. Each of these bags holds the potential to reach hundreds of children.
Haytham in action
Translation donation
Green bags arrive
Recently Clenir dos Santos, Pavement Project Director, visited churches in the US. This amazing group of people hosted a dinner and provided five tablets to be taken back to Brazil, and covered the cost of a further five. You can read more about the developments of Pavement Project and the new green bag app on page 6.
One of the most effective training methods for Pavement Project workers is the trainers’ DVD. First launched back in 2014 the DVD teaches new workers how to use the green bag resources, and has had a huge effect on the project’s growth ever since – allowing us to equip more people, reduce running costs and work on a much larger scale. With plans in full swing to bring the green bag to the Middle East, there was a need to translate the trainers’ DVD into Arabic for use in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt. Thanks to your donations work has begun on making the newly translated DVDs a reality, with one of the translators – Haytham – donating his salary back to Pavement Project! The passion and dedication of people like you and Haytham provide the backbone for this life changing work.
To all of you who have been a part of Pavement Project’s mission through your incredible support and prayer – thank you! We hope you’ll continue to partner with us and with what God is doing in the world to transform children’s lives through the green bag. For as long as there are so many amazing projects, churches and individuals pouring themselves out to make a difference to these children, then Pavement Project can continue to bring God’s love and healing wherever we are able.
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Pavement Project is a Lifewords initiative, bringing hope and healing to children and young people at-risk. Lifewords is a registered charity (no 219055). Registered in England and Wales.
From clown to prophet “A clown without joy,” answered João Carlos*, as the Pavement Project worker asked him to describe how he was feeling during their first counselling session. “I don’t feel happy. Clowns are supposed to bring people joy, but I don’t have any. I don’t have anything to be happy about.” João had spent many years staying at home because his anxiety meant he found it difficult to be around people. This had begun to take its toll on him, making him feel disconnected from his family and friends. He felt excluded and removed from his life – and wasn’t sure how to start building bridges and restoring his relationships. When João reached the end of his session he compared himself to a prophet in the hands of God. Since that moment, he never misses an opportunity to talk to people about God! “The green bag counselling session came at a very difficult point in my life. I was going through a hard time – I felt discouraged,” says João. Now at the age of 20, he is a counsellor, and is in the process of becoming a Pavement Project worker. He says his mission is to help other young people with whatever they may be going through. “I want to be a blessing by introducing them to the love of Jesus,” he says. * Names have been changed.
Don’t forget you can watch videos of Lifewords work with street children and see the green bag in action at youtube.com/Lifewords.
Lifewords exists because the Bible is for everyone, everywhere. Since 1888, we’ve been helping people to find ways in to this good news. All our programmes, resources, literature and digital tools invite people to explore the Bible’s life words for themselves.
Bringing healing to children-at-risk through a counselling app As Pavement Project transitions into its seventeenth year, we are exploring how we can make the programme even more effective. We want to embrace the opportunity that technology offers to speed up the Pavement Project training process for workers, to increase access to the programme – and ultimately to reach and bring healing to more children. Pilot test results show that an app will be more engaging for children, and simpler for counsellors to train on and use. The app will remove the high ongoing costs of physical bag production and allow us to update resources easily, add languages, and improve monitoring and reporting. Crucially, the app will also provide ease of access and make it possible for us to quickly set up new workers in conflict or crisis situations – where children bear the brunt of war, poverty and natural disaster.
How do we know the app will work? Since its inception, Pavement Project resources have been under constant review to ensure that they deliver the best experience for children. In 2015 we introduced a revised, smaller bag of resources; and since 2016, we have been testing a basic Pavement Project app on a tablet. Test results indicate that the app works just as well as the green bag, if not a little better, and that children prefer the tablet.
Will you help us make this life changing resource accessible for even more people? We are now seeking to raise funding for 110 tablets and 260 new green bags for 2018. Your gift could allow us to work for the first time with siginificant numbers of children in some of the poorest countries in South and Central America, including Guatemala, Paraguay, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Chile.
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lifewordsUK
Lifewords
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