Who Are Children At Risk?

With CHILDREN AT RISK the focus of Central's fall missions event, we asked people in ministries the church supports to contribute a sentence scenario describing a child in their current experience. The children's names are fictitious.

• In Thailand, Hassan's mother works all day in rice paddies during planting season, but leaves the family the rest of the year to seek work in Bangkok. His sister was sold into child labor.
• In Sudan, in the largest of the camps, more than 2,700 students are enrolled in grades 1-8. The constantly growing population means that 1500 other children cannot go to school.
• In Cambodia, Limhak was orphaned 4 years ago when his parents died from AIDS. He lives with his elderly grandmother in a small shack.
• In Cambodia, 12-year old Ry helps her mother make sugar palm paste, the juice of which must be kept boiling for 5 hours, leaving little time for study or play.
• In Cambodia, when Tol picked up a pineapple mine, he did not know what it was. The resulting explosion killed three of his friends. Tol lost a leg. His family considers him useless.
• In Towson, 11-year old Ashley found pornography in the family computer's internet history file. She felt confused, scared, ashamed and dirty. Her father has been holding on to Regeneration's phone number for 2 years and has yet to call.
• In Baltimore, a little brother and sister have a single, mentally-challenged mother from whom they get no discipline. They have no ability to praise God and go to church mainly for food.
• In Cameroon, Justice and several of his siblings will not go to school this year because the family can only afford to send two children.
• In a local high school, 15-year old Jessica begins cutting herself because she has no other coping mechanism to deal with her eating disorder.
• In a local middle school, 12-year old Brad has begun experimenting with drugs and alcohol to try and win acceptance from others.
• In Japan, faced with high expectations academically and great pressure for conformity, Sasha is one of many school-age children responding with "hiki-komori," the complete inability to leave one's room.
• Third grader, Doug, and his mother lived for several months in their car on the streets of Baltimore. They have found a place to live in an unsavory neighborhood.
• In Phnom Penh, 4-year old Heng has a mother so distracted by her own hard work and money problems that she forgot to feed him for two weeks.
• In Thailand, Lum, 10, roams the streets of a beach resort town and is befriended by a foreign, male tourist who showers him with affection and exploits him sexually. Lum's parents benefit financially from this arrangement.
• In Thailand, 16-year old Loh is recruited from a poor rural family to work in brothels in the city. She sends some of the money earned back home to help her family.
• In Haiti, 8-year old Tigga suffers from developmental delays in his speech and physical abilities because of trauma experienced when he was abandoned to the streets as a toddler.
• In Southeast Asia, hundreds of children are being raised and used by a local tribal army. They have no families. Present day inadequate resources mean that the army is willing to release the children, but resources to rescue them are unavailable.
• At Dadaab Refugee Camp, 15-year old Nadifo, a Somali girl, cannot control her bladder due to traumatic childbirth 6 months ago. She has no resources and medical help is very limited.
• In Kakuma Refugee Camp, 7-year old Abior is faced with paralysis of his legs, probably due to a growth on his spinal cord. There are no medical facilities to care for him.
• In the Philippines, Josie stayed with a family of 6 who had one can of meat, the size of a small western pill bottle, and one egg for the meal.
• In Sudan, 3.5 million displaced, rural Darfuri families are in a hunger line and no clean water is available. Parents have no resources to care for their children.
• Andre and Dijon, 2 middle school brothers, who at ages 5 and 6 witnessed their father being burned alive in the Congo. After living in hiding for a year, they fled to Canada.
• In Baltimore, Angel, 5, is living in the House of Ruth to escape a father who tried to kill her mom.
• A family with 7 children have been living at Sarah's Hope for 10 months because they are unable to afford a place to live, in spite of both parents having a job.

See also NV: Children at Risk: Solutions!! and Social Action Ministries at Central and Missions at Central.