Prevent the next generation of street children

Imagine with me for a moment. You’re a 12-year-old child. You live with your family of four in extreme poverty. You and your family sleep, eat and live together in one small room, roughly 10’x10’ in size. The home is made of clay and there are large holes in the walls, letting in the cold and the rain. There is no front door and your floor is made of dirt. Inside your home you have no heat, no running water, and practically everything you’ve ever owned has been discarded by someone else.

Stay with me. Instead of going to school to learn and instead of playing on the playground with other children and enjoying the innocence of childhood, each day you are sent by your father to work in the streets. Now imagine the fear of knowing that if you don’t bring home enough money you will receive a severe beating from your father. Your parents, the ones who are supposed to protect you, encourage you and love you, instead are the ones who put your life in danger each and every day. This is Maya’s story.

We met Maya and her little brother while they were doing acrobats in the streets to earn coins. Cold, alone, vulnerable, they would work late into the night. After many invitations, the children started attending the Kaya Center. We supported the children in every way we could and tried to find ways to work with the family. However, knowing the nightmare these precious children returned home to each night was heartbreaking.

Then one day Maya showed up on the doorstep of one of our staff members with her little brother, Angel. They were scared and couldn’t go back home. Just a few months ago, having no girls’ residential home, we would have had to turn Maya away. However, now that we have opened a girls’ home, we were able to welcome Maya and her little brother into Kaya’s Residential Program. A new chapter has begun in Maya’s story, a chapter full of HOPE.

Kaya Children International exists to fight for Maya and other children like Maya. Children who have no one, children who are losing hope, children who are vulnerable. With your support, Maya has a voice, a life, and a promising future. Maya’s story is full of darkness, but the light of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter morning shines more powerfully than any darkness. It transforms lives and brings restoration and rebirth.