Wars have changed: today wars are primarily civil wars and civilians are targets rather than collateral damage. Today many warring groups specifically target women and children in order to spread fear through a population. This has led to a situation in which armed conflict disproportionately affects children.
Children who live in conflict zones or who have been through a war have suffered in many ways and need many different forms of assistance to regain a semblance of normalcy. Although children are extremely resilient, conflict makes children more vulnerable to the effects of their broken environment:
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many have lost their family and friends;
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many have lost their homes;
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their community - and sense of community - was damaged;
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Access to health care and education have been disrupted;
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many have experienced physical trauma due to injury, illness, lack of nutrition or abuse;
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Many have experienced emotional trauma from witnessing violence, losing loved ones, or being abused.
Hope for the Nations is particularly concerned about these children and seeks to address their needs using many different approaches. Explore the different projects that HFTN supports and consider how you can get involved.
One third of the approximately 300,000 child soldiers in the world live in Southeast Asia. Yet "live" is a relative term. Due to political and ethnic instability, conflict is widespread and children and their families suffer. Boys and girls as young as 6 years old are forced into local ethnic armies where they are trained as soldiers for guerrilla warfare. Their purpose: to serve and defend the drug lords of the area at the cost of losing their parents, families, homes and even their own lives.
Together, HFTN and our partner, Divine Inheritance, take child soldiers out of hopeless situations and care for them. We work in restricted access regions of Southeast Asia to provide these children with shelter, food, clothing, education, spiritual care and love.
We train these children to become leaders in their communities. Some of them will end up working on tea plantations, others as teachers or government leaders. In every aspect of life they are being taught to carry a spirit of excellence and to create a positive impact on the regions they live in.
You can help by investing in raising up vibrant young leaders in regions that are rife with instability, drugs, smuggling, disease and wars. For $7/week ($30/month) you can help rescue and rehabilitate a child soldier.
Click here to sponsor a child in this project.
To learn more about our partner, click here.