Photo courtesy of Teoh Phaik Hoon
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Viva 2008 Review
Viva
Viva Review 2008
It was the mid-90s, and I was
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part of an amazing Indian team helping children in a poor urban area. One girl had been sold by her mother – twice. She was re-sitting her exams for the fourth time, and finally gave up. As much as we tried to help her and the many children like her, the reality was that too much of the time we struggled, lacking skills, contacts and resources. I longed to know just what it would take to enable a team to turn their willingness into a professional and effective service, without losing the love behind it.
Photo courtesy of CRANE network, Africa
A good ten years later, and Viva has built more than 85 networks around the world to support, sustain and equip projects just like these. These networks bring projects together to share methods, training, expertise and resources to help better serve children at risk. As each network supports at least 5,000 children, they are very often the biggest provider of care for children in their area. Individually, each project may be doing great work but they can be isolated and often invisible. But when over 50 projects come together to work in unity, they can make a real and lasting change to the situation of the children they work with. They are also much better placed to engage local churches and increase their ability to respond further still.
In this review* you can read how workers just like the ones I was with have been given the essential skills they need to succeed. These workers are now equipped with the tools they need to reach out and care for children who really need it. Through the network, their projects not only keep going but are constantly improving.
In your hand is an amazing testimony of how Viva’s expertise in growing networks and getting people, churches and organisations to work together is helping hurting children across the world Ian de Villiers
* The time period covered by this review is April 2007 to June 2008.
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Viva’s Reach Staff in our regional centres in Costa Rica, Kampala, New Delhi and Kuala Lumpur support networks reaching children at risk across three continents
Viva Review 2008
Alfredo Mora Rojas, Latin America Regional Director 40 networks I am so happy to have an excellent team in Latin America that works so hard to implement projects and ways of working that demonstrate Christ’s love and bring hope to our children. I felt particularly privileged to be part of our new leadership programme this year. It provided us with tools for the growth of our own team as well as the development of emerging leaders from across our region.
Brian Wilkinson, Chief Operating Officer, International Office UK 4 networks The highlight of this year was my visits to Uganda and Bolivia. In both places the Quality Improvement System has been central in delivering a programme second to none. It was clear to see that children were benefitting greatly from the training that caregivers had received, from the small improvement grants that we have been able to provide and from the love and dedication of our teams. As a result the networks are flourishing, and growing in membership and influence.
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Joel Nichols, US Board Member We have been working hard to develop an enthusiastic board of trustees for the States with our own website and brochure, so that more Americans can play a meaningful role in Viva. We’re part of a great team from around the world that has the potential to bring about more and more change for children.
Isobel Booth-Clibborn, Africa Regional Coordinator 12 networks It has been really exciting for me to see our two year project to improve the quality of care for children at risk completed. I am really proud of all the projects that crossed the finishing line and felt honoured to present them with their awards after all their hard work.
Shantanu Dutta, India Regional Director 13 networks A great first for us this year was the series of caregivers’ retreats we organised here at Viva India. These retreats gave caregivers a great opportunity to be refreshed, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is so important that we encourage and nurture caregivers so that they are better able to give children the care they need now and in the future.
Ian de Villiers, Asia Regional Coordinator 18 networks It has been great to see the changes brought about across the Philippines by the network. My highlight is how, through the network, local pastors and church members on the poorest island are helping children who were being trafficked, and even stopping the traffickers. They really are the light of the world!
Mission
Viva Review 2008
In the next five years I’d like Viva to achieve two things. Firstly,
I’d like to document and make it commonly known that Christians do more for children at risk than just about anybody else.
Secondly,
I’d like to demonstrate that when the church works together to reach out to children, communities can be transformed, major problems can be solved, and the needs of the poor and oppressed can be met. 6
The church has often been described as the only institution that exists for the benefit of its nonmembers, and certainly the mandate to ‘love our neighbour as ourselves’ is at the very heart of the Christian faith. Rick Warren describes the church as ‘a community of a billion volunteers’, Bill Hybels as ‘the hope for the world’. Whatever a person may think of Jesus, the potential of the church is hard to deny. Yet real impact often eludes us, even when it comes to children dying on our doorsteps. I’d like to change that.
Photo courtesy of Heather Bourque
With your help, Viva will continue to do all that we can to help improve the sometimes sporadic and amateur response of the church today until it is concerted, comprehensive and credible. Is the church ‘the hope for the world’? I believe so. Now let’s try and prove it. Patrick McDonald Chief Executive
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Networking
Viva Review 2008
Networking works! Viva’s work is based on the idea that by
bringing disparate projects together in united networks, more children can receive better help. We have seen for ourselves the inspiring ways in which these networks have been able to improve the lives of children, but until now there has been no scientific proof of the effectiveness of this approach. We decided to change this, through a rigorous process of research and evaluation.
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Our Oxford team convened a meeting of experienced staff and academics to identify the benefits that an effective network would bring. They came up with these five areas:
Changed children’s lives: happier, healthier, growing children
Thriving workers: staff feeling better able
Photo courtesy of Jenni Kornell
and better motivated to do their work with and for children at risk
Sustainable projects: large and small organisations better equipped and resourced in their work for the longer term
Engaged churches: congregations excited about the possibilities of making a difference to children in need in their communities, and doing something about those needs
Influenced decision-makers: people in
authority making decisions that help and do not harm vulnerable children. The project’s focus then moved to the Philippines, where Viva’s Asia team worked with the network based in Manila, the Philippines Children’s Ministries Network (PCMN), to set indicators for each area. They collected information on the changes that happened after the network was set up. It was particularly important to demonstrate that any good changes identified were due to the work of the network.
When the results of this research came in, we were delighted, but not surprised, to find that it proves beyond doubt that networking works! We do not unfortunately have space here to relate all the examples contained in the report, but here’s just one, showing how the network has engaged churches to address a large and complex problem. Networking gets very exciting when members get together to catalyse new projects that they would not be able to do by themselves. Project Rhoda grew out of a local network in Quezon City at the heart of the urban sprawl. Network members realised that child domestic workers in middle class homes across the city were sorely neglected in any provision. Through connections built initially with three churches, 100 child workers were identified.
Where once they were invisible, these children were then given a special welcome in the churches. To help develop their gifts, each child was encouraged to take an active role in the life of the church. Project staff have also inspired and supported the children in their education to the extent that many are getting good enough grades to consider going to university. ‘Di’ told the researcher: “Before I could not believe that I could attend high school but now, I am looking forward to a college education. I have bigger dreams now in life, and I believe I am not far from reaching them. There is hope. Before, I felt hopeless.” We will now be using our findings to ensure that we are doing all we can to support our partner networks to bring change in the lives of children, workers, projects, churches and decision-makers.
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Africa
Viva Review 2008
“If it hadn’t been for the network I would still be scratching my head. 90% of what I know, I know because of the network” Dwelling Places staff member, Uganda
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many parts of Africa are tragically too familiar. In Uganda, for example, each child born has a one in seven chance of dying before their fifth birthday. Those that survive beyond the age of five face a further one in seven chance of being orphaned. One in three will contract the HIV virus. The good news, though, is that the church’s response is substantial, and growing. In Kampala alone there are 800 known groups working with the city’s vulnerable children. Viva has developed a flourishing network in Kampala, called CRANE. This network brings together projects involved in a wide range of work including the running of residential homes, provision of informal education and support for street children. CRANE projects have been pooling resources, research and ideas, and have been involved in joint advocacy, training, prayer and children’s activities. A representative from the Ray of Hope project explains the benefits of belonging to the network, ‘It was through sharing experiences with others in CRANE that we had the courage to set up the school. Other network members have done similar things, and we were able to learn from them how they went about it. It helped us to avoid the same pitfalls.’ With just 15 members two years ago, CRANE now has more than 60 member projects. 39
of these have now completed Viva’s Quality Improvement Scheme (QIS) and made significant improvements to the way their organisations are run. You can read more about this great training tool on page 16. The projects have found that their influence has grown since becoming part of the network. They are using their new voice to influence national policy guidelines affecting children and are in dialogue with the Ugandan government on the subject of children’s rights.
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One important way in which Viva can support the networks is to help them to secure funding for their work. Viva has helped to broker a relationship between CRANE and the Danish Mission Council who have generously funded much of the work that has been done in Kampala to build this network. Viva also plays an important role in overseeing the management and reporting of the programme, helping to equip the network team with the skills and support they need, whilst also ensuring that donors’ expectations are met. On seeing the achievements of this dynamic and united network, a further 170 projects in Kampala have expressed an interest in joining it. 14,000 children in the city are already helped by network members, and we look forward to seeing many, many more receive the care and love they so urgently need.
Photo courtesy of CRANE network, Africa
The problems facing children in
Latin America
Viva Review 2008
An alliance creating hope on the streets of Latin America
Children living
and working on the streets of Latin America face huge danger. Although many people are seeking to care for these high risk children, the numbers needing help are so large, and the individual needs of each child so complex that progress can often be painstakingly slow. Research shows that little is being done to prevent the damage that occurs when children find themselves alone and at risk on the street, and to reduce the number of children coming onto the streets in the first place.
Photo courtesy of CRANE network, Africa
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The programme has kept 1,925 children off the streets and free of its associated dangers over the last three years
Three years ago, a partnership between Viva and Toybox set out fundamentally to change the way this problem was approached. The result was an innovative and effective solution called ‘Early Encounter’. The scheme brings together a range of key people from existing local projects, churches, community groups, local authorities and government to work together in a coordinated, city-wide approach. A model has been developed through which local ‘scouts’ are placed at key places such as bus or train stations, where vulnerable children often arrive in a big city and where they are only too often picked up by pimps, gangs or drug pushers. Instead, children are taken to a safe house where they receive a health check, food
and shelter, and are then placed with projects in the Viva local network where they are given the long term care they need. The information gathered through the scheme also helps to identify those communities with particularly high numbers of children trying to run away. The problems of these communities can then be specifically addressed. To set this in context, the Bolivian government has a programme to help street children in Cochabamba which rescued 100 children in five years. Early Encounter rescued over 300 children in only six months. Impressed, the government asked Viva and Toybox to work for them. Alfredo Mora, Viva’s Regional Director in Latin America, reports ‘We told them that we will not work for them, but we will work alongside them, together, for the children.’ From its initial development in Cochabamba, Early Encounter has now spread to Oruro in Bolivia, Lima in Peru and Guatemala City in Guatemala. In Bolivia, the programme has kept 1,925 children off the streets and free of its associated dangers over the last three years. This Toybox-Viva alliance is partnership at its best – the sharing of ideas, expertise and resources to produce a solution which can help transform children’s lives.
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India
Viva Review 2008
Networking in a land of a billion people – Viva’s India team is launched
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with a number of new partners, Viva has now established a Regional Centre in India to bring the benefits of networking to the dynamic Indian Christian community that works with children at risk. Only 2% of Indians may be Christians, but they are highly committed to responding to the needs of children at risk. The numbers and needs of children at risk in India are huge, however, and there’s rarely adequate funding or trained staff. There can also be misunderstanding, with much larger
the Viva India team is working hard to unite and support the many Christians who refuse to stand back and do nothing
Muslim and Hindu communities sometimes questioning the agenda of Christians helping children. Viva’s small team is already working with 13 city networks across the country, and addressing issues such as the extreme discrimination that girls can face. Their ‘training of trainers’ helped people from the networks gain new insight into how to help their organisations really make a difference in the way that they work with children.
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There is still much more that churches can do, and so Viva is working with Christian seminaries to ensure that trainee pastors receive teaching on the subject of children at risk. It is hoped that when pastors graduate from seminary they will be equipped to work both with children in their church, and the children on their doorsteps. The challenges remain huge as India has hundreds of thousands of children at risk, but the Viva India team is working hard to unite and support the many Christians who refuse to stand back and do nothing. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hunter
Working
QIS
Viva Review 2008
Viva’s Quality Improvement System
Too often
projects working with children at risk face seemingly insurmountable problems – isolation, discouragement, lack of skills, funding or resources. A crushingly high number of projects working with children at risk fail in their first few years. Drawing on the insight and expertise that Viva staff have developed through years of working closely with projects like these, we have been able to offer an exciting new training system called the Quality Improvement System (QIS). QIS is a highly effective and potentially transformational tool for helping organisations to improve the quality and impact of their work with children.
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Photo courtesy of CRANE network, Africa
It works to biblical principles and internationally recognised standards in six key areas:
‘Since QIS, the place is a happier place to work. The children feel it’
• Child Protection • People Care • Project Planning and Design • Financial Accountability • Governance • Child Wellbeing QIS Qualit
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Projects first assess their current performance, and QIS then provides a structured framework for training and making improvements in priority areas. Each organisation is supported within the network through peer-to-peer learning and accountability, so that the process of quality improvement is sustainable. A dedicated facilitator is responsible for overseeing the delivery of QIS in each network, and special QIS mentors support organisations as they put into practice all that they are learning. Thanks to QIS, in Cochabamba, Bolivia, improvements have been made to the physical conditions of over one thousand children at risk through the creation of safe recreational areas, improved living conditions, kitchen facilities, sleeping quarters and clean water systems. Viva is looking to build on the success of QIS and the tangible improvements in quality and good practice that it has brought. It is now being successfully rolled out to 180 projects through networks in Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, India, Peru, South Africa and Uganda, with plans to expand into Kenya, Nicaragua and El Salvador.
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Viva Report
Viva Review 2008
‘If you were asked “What are Christians doing to help suffering children around the world?” what would you say?’ Lord Carey We know from experience that almost
anywhere where there is suffering you will find Christian people responding with practical help and hope. At Viva we have the privilege of working with and supporting many people who dedicate their lives to helping children at risk in their area. Yet it is currently impossible to say with certainty exactly what is happening where.
The resulting Viva Report will be invaluable in demonstrating to the wider world just how God’s church is responding to the needs of
Photo courtesy of Heather Bourque
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Viva is working to solve this problem by systematically researching, recording and mapping the Christian response to children at risk, with the aim of completing a detailed situational mapping of 50 areas by 2012.
the most vulnerable children. It will also help to highlight areas where that response is inadequate, so that the needs of children who are slipping through the net can be met. In the course of the research, it quickly becomes clear how fragmented the overall response can be, as each denomination, mission or nongovernmental organisation (NGO) has its own partners and contacts on the ground. But it is here that Viva’s local networks come into play. They bring together the disparate parts of the wider church’s response, regardless of denominational or organisational bias, and help to establish unity, a joint sense of identity and purpose, and to increase influence. This year has seen the publication of the second edition of the Viva Report, which maps the response to children in eight countries: Russia, Slovakia, Kenya, Uganda, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, India and the Philippines. In the foreword, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu writes: ‘Although much good work is being achieved it would be greatly enhanced if situations were seen from a broader perspective, problem areas of delivery identified and a coordinated approach instituted on both local and international level. This report gives you insights into what is being done towards this goal and points toward how much more we can do together. It is the start of our journey and I urge you to get involved and make a difference. You are reading this because you care. Get involved – go for it!’
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Sharing Expertise
Viva Review 2008
Opening our eyes to Invisible Children: Viva’s Asia Cutting Edge conference
Bunga Kamase Kobong, a counsellor who has helped lead Sahabat Peduli since its inception, spoke compellingly about the overwhelming needs of abused children across Indonesia. She also explained how society and even the church maintain a veil over the abuse, ensuring abused children stay invisible, unhealed and unhelped. We pray that this award will help break the silence.
Viva works to bring people together
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to share their expertise and ideas. In addition to working at local network level, we also create opportunities for experts and people of influence from different countries to meet, and pool their knowledge and thinking. They can then explore ways in which they can use this to improve and expand the church’s work with children at risk. Asia Cutting Edge invited 340 Christian leaders from across Asia to consider ‘Invisible Children’. The conference, which was held in Bangkok in November 2007, began with a compelling theatre performance, ‘Cracked
Mirrors’, about child sexual abuse from the perspective of the children affected. Speakers – including a Filipino professor, an Ecuadorean child advocate and a United Nations official – helped conference delegates to examine the different ways in which children can be invisible. Some children are physically out of sight in a refugee camp or in domestic service, for example, while others affected by disability or abuse can be marginalised and ignored. During devotions and shared breaking of bread, Pastor Nomer emphasised that we were not complete as a body until invisible
children had been made visible and invited to join the feast. The first ever Asha Award was also presented to the Sahabat Peduli Foundation (‘Friends who care’) from Jakarta, Indonesia. This small organisation was launched after the riots and rapes of 1998 and has a high quality counselling programme for children who have been sexually abused. They work carefully with church volunteers, professional psychologists and counsellors to help children and their families.
Some children are physically out of sight in a refugee camp or in domestic service, for example, while others affected by disability or abuse can be marginalised and ignored
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Praying Together
Viva Review 2008
Viva’s World Weekend of Prayer 2008: 3 million people across 87 countries spending 5.5 million hours in prayer for children at risk people getting involved in Viva’s World Weekend of Prayer have more than doubled over the last few years. We believe passionately in the power of prayer to bring about lasting change in the lives of children at risk and are privileged to hear some wonderful stories of what God is doing in answer to prayer.
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By committing to pray with the World Weekend of Prayer, church members across the world have become better informed about issues affecting children and more determined to provide a compassionate and effective response to the children on their doorsteps.
‘I saw a great wall. In that great wall was a small door and that door opened. This year, the Lord is going to open closed doors and do amazing things in children’s lives’ Vision given during a prayer event in Bangalore, India.
Many significant partnerships are being formed both within the church at large and within the prayer movement worldwide. This has been the third year, for example, that we have partnered with the Global Day of Prayer initiative. This has helped to extend the reach and influence of our prayer materials to enable people to pray in an informed and passionate way. A real encouragement is the amount of prayer being led by children and young people, often described as the most powerful times of prayer. According to reports we have received, over half of those praying were under the age of 18, interceding on behalf of their own generation. We even learned that the President of Slovakia led young people to pray for children at risk at a large music festival. By praying and listening to God we have helped to create a space for Him to speak and move amongst this generation. God has brought encouragement, vision and a sense of His plan.
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When we hear of churches like the one in El Salvador who reported that they made a call for those children who did not know the Lord to respond, and 300 children came to Jesus, we are moved to keep praying. With millions coming together to pray in unity, we look with faith to see how God will respond to the cries of His people on behalf of children at risk, and watch the news headlines with expectancy.
Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hunter
The numbers of
Christmas parties
Viva Review 2008
‘Parties are normally things that children from difficult backgrounds do not attend. The children perceive parties to be special things done for special people. When they attend a party, particularly one thrown in their honour, they feel special.’
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Viva invited over 40,000 children to come to a party, celebrate Christmas, and be introduced to projects designed to help them not just for a day, but for years to come. Organised across three continents, these parties are large, noisy, joyful events, sometimes catering for hundreds of children at a time. Children who have known little but neglect and abuse find themselves the invited guests, playing games, singing, dancing, and receiving gifts and good food. One street child commented that this was the first time she was able to eat food that she had not had to fight for. Many of these children have few if any opportunities to behave like children and lay aside the often terrible pressures they face. One Christmas party was held for 400 children who had either been orphaned by AIDS, or had parents suffering in the last stages of the disease. The party gave them an invaluable chance to stop and play, laugh and celebrate in the midst of trauma. Viva’s Christmas parties are designed to achieve even more, though, and their effects can be life-changing. Around a third of the children
attending parties are not yet involved with a project, and the party provides a crucial link between children and project staff who can then offer them the care they need. Likewise, parties can also provide the perfect opportunity for projects which are not part of a network to see for themselves the benefits of belonging, and many individual projects join networks as a result.
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What better way could there be of celebrating God coming to earth as a child than to introduce some of the most neglected children to projects which will support and care for them for years to come?
‘I have always felt forgotten and alone, apart from today. I have never received such a gift of love in my entire life’ 11 year old Yoseph
Photo courtesy of Viva Africa
Last year
Financial review Financial year April 2007 to March 2008
Viva Review 2008
Income Designated gifts channelled through Viva £155,413 Grants £462,353
Total: £1,772,891 £1,372,589 2006-07 26
Gift Aid £40,483 Income by region £495,981
General donations from individuals, churches, trusts and organisations £539,161
Expenditure Raising funds £112,410 Developing new programmes £495,873
Asia programme £148,558
Total: £1,763,015 Photo courtesy of CRANE network, Africa
Fees for Viva events and products £79,500
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Raising prayer and awareness £36,511 International programme £125,456
Latin America programme £629,923 Africa programme £214,284
£1,351,000 2006-07
Thanks to the generosity of Viva’s supporters and partners, our income has risen this year by £400,000. This has enabled us to carry out the breadth of work you have been able to read about in this review. Thank you! Audited accounts are available on the website www.viva.org or by request at info@viva.org
Working Together Our work to grow networks and get people, churches and organisations to work together is increasing in size, impact and potential. There is room for everyone to get involved. • PRAY Prayer has the power to transform lives.Viva Pray offers several ways to get involved. Prayer Email - receive up-to-theminute prayer requests from our networks around the world. [Sent every two weeks]
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World Weekend of Prayer - each year in June, join with millions of Christians around the globe in praying for children as part of our World Weekend of Prayer for Children at Risk. Find out more at www.viva.org/pray
• GIVE Simply put, investing in Viva means revolutionising life for children. Whether you can give once or regularly, £5 or £5,000, we can help you invest this for children at risk and those who care for them in the most strategic way. To give, please find details online at www.viva.org/give or write to Viva at the address below.
Viva, Unit 8, The Gallery, 54 Marston Street, Oxford OX4 1LF Tel: +44 (0) 1865 811660 Email: enquiries@viva.org www.viva.org Registered charity no. 1053389
We would like to thank the following: Sterling Greenaways - for kindly printing this document with no charge to Viva Chris Matthews, Creative Design - for the design work