how poverty affects children

In the words of Dr Wess Stafford, Compassion International's President, "Poverty, an overwhelming global tragedy, occurs one life at a time. It destroys lives one at a time. And it is defeated one life at a time. Curiously enough, the poor seem to know this instinctively. All over the world I've found that if you ask a poor man or woman, 'What can I do to help you?' the answer is the same ... Whatever the circumstance, the poor do not request money or personal things. They invariably look back at you with hopeful eyes and say, 'If you want to help me, help my children.'"

His recent book Too Small to Ignore (2005, Waterbrook Press) is a touching insight into his own life experiences especially what he learned from growing up in an African village. As a boy, the son of missionaries to the Ivory Coast, Wess was one of the village children watched over by a wise and loving African "extended family". But his young heart was often broken when African friends died from the cruel ravages of poverty.

Wess' childhood sparked a passion for serving the poor and below are some excerpts pf the book that give an insight into poverty, and especially how it affects young children worldwide.

"I learned in my childhood in Africa that a child may be born in poverty but poverty is never born in a child. The worst aspects of poverty are not the deplorable outward conditions but rather the erosion and eventual destruction of hope and therefore dreams. When a child gives up hope, dreams are forever shattered. With lost dreams goes the potential and ultimate impact that a child might have had. If we nurture the dreams of children, the world will be blessed. If we destroy them, the world is doomed." (Too Small to Ignore, p. 36)

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