Viva Review 2009
Event: International Cutting Edge Conference Attendees: Leaders and decision-makers working with children at risk Date:12th - 17th July 2008 Location: Wheaton College, Illinois, USA
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Cutting Edge really is exactly what the name suggests: it’s on the pulse of our changing world. It’s a chance for key leaders, and others with decisionmaking power, to come together and spark off new ideas, devise fresh strategies, and inspire innovative solutions to fight the problems that are faced by children at risk.
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When it comes to working with developing communities we can only move forward if we learn how to empower people to care for children in their own circumstances.The Cutting Edge conference gave us an opportunity to hear from those who are out there doing just that. It ran for five days, with both whole group meetings and smaller workshops, and also some time allocated to simply networking and building relationships and contacts.The leaders who conducted the workshops and seminars are experts in their field, not simply from years of study but from years of hard experience. Hearing their stories, and knowing they were living out what they were sharing, really brought the sessions alive.
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I’ve been working with vulnerable children and youth for 12 years now, most recently in a very poor immigrant community in California.There are people who care for the kids, but there is such a lack of resources, and a lack of power to effect change.When we talked to local families about what they felt was needed, the overwhelming response was that people felt the real power lay in partnership – bringing schools and churches and youth projects together to make a difference for the whole community. A few years ago we wouldn’t have known how to even begin this task. Now thanks to Viva we have a clear framework to make it happen, and events like Cutting Edge allow that knowledge to be passed straight to us by the people who have actually lived and worked it out. However, it’s not just a passive thing – Cutting Edge helps to bring together the worldwide community of people caring for children at risk in a mutually beneficial way. It’s an amazing meeting of minds, and of hearts, as some of the most influential, essential, and passionate people on the global development scene join forces to see transformation brought to the lives of vulnerable children around the world.
The group that met at Cutting Edge 2008 are all Christians, and it was - and still is - exciting to see that faith leading to action in people’s work with children at risk. However, we recognised a clear need for quality in that work, a need for us to be both faithful and professional.
There were over 350 delegates at the conference, representing 160 global organisations, and yet still there was an incredible unity of purpose - like an enormous invisible network undergirding all the sessions. Out of all the things I have taken away from Cutting Edge it is the sense of real community amongst those leaders, and their combined determination to radically change children’s lives, that has stayed with me the most.
So together we drew up a pledge and a quality charter which organisations, churches, projects, and individuals could sign up to. To see the Pledge and the Quality Charter please visit
www.viva.org/cuttingedge.aspx