El Salvador – land of the Saviour

A country of beauty and potential, but filled with fear and violence. Yet hope is stirring in the form of a small network of people, striving to bring hope to street children and their families. This blog will follow the journey of Toybox as it stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of El Salvador, providing support, funding and friendship as we work together to help bring about a world with no street children.

Follow the journey with your friendly Toybox guides, Jess and Stephen! We will be travelling out to El Salvador this February with Adrian and Bridget Plass, so please follow this blog to keep up with our adventures!

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News from Latin America

Pamela is 10 years old and works on the streets of Cochabamba, Bolivia, selling sweets to help support her family, while she tries to continue in her studies.

Pamela says “I live with my parents; I’m the second of three children. After selling sweets I go to school. I’m in fifth grade and I will study to become a teacher like Ruth. Ruth is an educator of the project where I go. She’s nice; she helps me with my homework, and when I’m scared she prays for me and for my entire family”

The Project Pamela attends is part of the Cochabamba Red Alert Network. The project provides the opportunity to grow up with an education and teaches life skills. They also work hard with the children’s families to help the children to stop working, or reduce their working hours as much as they can, to be able to have more time to study, play, and be children.

Ruth comments, “When Pamela came to the Project, she had some degree of malnutrition and poor health. We worked on improving her physical health and confidence, since she also had an inferiority complex due to the maltreatment from people on the streets. Now, she’s a leader and attends the project with her brother Cristian. Pamela looks up to her brother and wants to be like him, they both have great leadership potential. They have been attending the project for over three years, and each day that passes we see them grow in every way.”

Toybox Cycle Challenge – Spread the Word!

We still have places available for anyone wishing to take part in this exciting cycle challenge which will start at Whitehaven in Cumbria and finish in Newcastle Upon-Tyne following Hadrian’s Cycleway.  It takes place this August.

Please click here for more information, and to book your place.

Can you spread the word? If you know of friends, work colleagues, family who might want to take part; or if you are able to advertise the challenge in your local church notices or newsletter, that would be great!

Toybox Conference – Stepping Up and Reaching Out

Join the Toybox team and special guests for news, stories and an insight into the plans and dreams of what the future may hold for Toybox and the street children of Latin America.

The day is open to all our supporters and it will inform and encourage you about the work Toybox is doing at home and overseas.

It will feature inspiring talks from Adrian & Bridget Plass, following their latest trip to El Salvador; a biblical insight from Rev Joel Edwards; a keynote speech from our Chief Executive Andy Stockbridge, and stories from the street children in Latin America – all this rolled up in one memorable day which is not to be missed!

To book your place and for more information, please visit the Toybox Conference website.

The recent earthquake in Haiti has left at least 70,000 people dead and up to two million children affected in the Port-au-Prince area. Many children in the capital city are alone, scared and severely injured. There are even stories of children sleeping amongst the bodies.

Haiti is a country with a very young population. Under-18s make up almost half of the 10-million strong population and aid agencies are warning they are at great risk from ongoing physical and psychological trauma. Already the country faces the highest rates of infant and child mortality in the Western hemisphere with diarrhoea, respiratory infections, and tuberculosis among the leading causes of death. Before the earthquake there were an estimated 300,000 street children living and working on the streets of major cities. Now, as the Salesians – an order of monks who are working in Haiti – pointed out: ‘all children in Port-au-Prince are street children.’

“It is almost impossible to conceive of a tragedy on such a scale, and it’s the last thing that Haiti – facing so many challenges already – needed. It’s easy to see nothing but despair, and yet there is hope – in the lives of the survivors and those who emerged from the rubble. These people need our support and prayers – not just now – but in the long term.”

– David Westwood – Director of Advocacy, Toybox.

Please pray for Haiti and its children. You can also give to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal online at http://www.dec.org.uk

Photo courtesy of www.bbc.co.uk

Background to Haiti

Haiti is the world’s first black-led republic and the first independent Caribbean state – achieved when it threw off French colonial control in the early 19th century. However since that time there have been decades of poverty, environmental degradation, violence, instability and dictatorship, which have left Haiti as the poorest nation in the Americas. The majority of its 10 million people live on less than £1 a day.

The country is very prone to natural disasters: last year, Haiti was devastated by four hurricanes in as many weeks, killing 1,000 people and leaving 800,000 homeless. This latest disaster is far worse.

Of all the nations in the Western Hemisphere, none faces greater challenges to improve the lives of its children than Haiti. In addition to its poor development indicators, Haiti is the country most affected by HIV/AIDS outside of sub-Saharan Africa, which aggravates the well-being of children whose health is already compromised by poverty and inadequate access to basic health care.

Haiti’s most serious underlying social problem, the huge wealth gap between the impoverished Creole-speaking black majority and the French-speaking minority, 1% of whom own nearly half the country’s wealth, remains unaddressed. Many Haitians seek work and a better life in the US or other Caribbean nations, and the economy is propped up by foreign aid and remittances.

Taken from www.bbc.co.uk