Dear friends,
Time to give an update on our new project.
“One Village at the Time”
As mentioned in previous blogs, news flashes and our Facebook page, we next to our Baan Zion home per January of this year officially started with helping girls of imprisoned mothers living with their poor grandparents in the Hill Tribe villages.
This apart from the support we do give to girls that live in Baan Zion, but can be reunited with from prison released mothers. Support to set up a new and better life and if needed can continue up to two years.
After taking the first girl into this new program, word in her village but also the surrounding villages spread fast.
Even toward Hill Tribe villages as far as 70 kilometers away.
The number of applications for help really overwhelmed us, and are still coming in.
No wonder if we do take into consideration, that in these Hill Tribe villages poverty is wide spread, parental care is not common place and girls for being considered as ‘less’ within their culture often are just dropped with old grandparents, while the parents have new partners and children.
Looking at our peer group, being girls of who the mother is imprisoned, the situation is absolutely very bad.
Grandparents are poor and without support just cannot take care.
They can hardly pay for food, let alone clothing, health care and school is out of the question.
And as you may all know, young girls here are very vulnerable.
Abuse, sexual exploitation and human trafficking are luring around the corner. The result is that youth pregnancies and std’s are many and this vicious circle of hopelessness keeps going on.
We at date have 5 girls under our care. By our financial support the grandparent(s) can get food on the table, buy clothing and pay for schooling.
By checking on the girl every two weeks, or more when needed, we stand next to the grandparent(s) in the upbringing of the girl.
We by doing so also offer the needed counselling and protection to the girl and help her to work on a better future.
This project is not only life changing for the girls, but also has an impact in the family and the community as a whole. It offers us the possibility for community service, extra tuition and holiday activities for the village kids, education on health and sexual issues and an opening to preach the Gospel.
Looking at today, we immediately could help 20 more girls in the surrounding Hill Tribe villages if the needed funding becomes available.
It would be an absolute answer to our prayers if we could raise the 500 US$ monthly needed to help these 20 girls with a safe and child worthy future.
For only 25 US$ monthly (83 cents per day) you can make the difference and be a life changer for one of these girls.
God bless you all,
Rev. Dr. Jan