Without Compassion's vocational planning and job training program for sponsored children, the majority of these youth would remain among the ranks of India's 700 million impoverished, unskilled laborers. The sudden death of Sujin Balraj's father was devastating. Bearing the burden of caring for his mother and family seemed insurmountable. But thanks to the vocational training classes at a Compassion-assisted project, Sujin sees a fruitful future as a mechanic.
For many of India's poor, suicide offers an escape from wrenching hunger and misery. Read how eight-year-old Bineesh saved himself, his sister and his mother from her desperate attempts on their lives and later found hope through his Compassion sponsorship.
While many children around the world play hide and seek at playgrounds, Claire Giamzon and her friends hop over steel rails and dodge speeding trains. Giamzon, age 13, attends the Compassion-assisted Sampaloc Bible Church Student Center and lives a stone's throw from dangerous railroad tracks. All along the tracks are poor families who have set up shanties coveting the open space. They are too poor to move to a safer place. Thankfully, the Compassion project offers a safe haven for many of these children and families.
In El Salvador, nearly half the population lives below the poverty line. Spiritual hunger is just as prevalent as the hunger in their stomachs. But thanks to the Partners of Compassion (POC) Fund, that is changing: Over 3,500 Bibles were distributed to 29 Compassion projects across El Salvador this spring.
Now in his sophomore year at Nairobi University, Leadership Development Program (LDP) student Jonathan Agunda grew up in one of the world's most notoriously impoverished communities. Though only 21, Jonathan is already a living example of how God's love lifts us up and enables us to stand tall.
