The Compassion Experience
Last week we took our Girl Power World Changer Club from Isaac Dickson Elementary School on a field trip to the Compassion Experience. The Compassion Experience is an interactive journey through true stories of children living in developing countries and takes participants to the streets, homes, markets, and schools of children whose lives begin in poverty and end in hope.
Our visit took us through the lives of a young boy in Bolivia and a young girl in Uganda. The girls were wide-eyed as they listened to the voice of a young child speaking to them through their headsets, telling them about life lived on the streets of Bolivia and in the slums of Uganda.
They heard how a family of 5 took turns sleeping in one “bed” which was a hard wooden bench in their small hut. They listened intently as the children told of eating stale bread and having to work rather than attend school. While each of the stories began in seemingly hopeless situations involving hunger, homelessness, and a lack of opportunity, the stories ended in transformed lives that highlighted what can happen in our world when we invest ourselves in the lives of others.
In our World Changer Clubs young people learn how they can affect their global community in a positive way. They recognize the blessings in their own lives like daily meals, school, clothes, medicine, and water. They grow in gratitude and what a blessing it is to bring more gratitude into the world.
The Compassion Experience allowed these 10 year old girls to recognize in a deeper way how their service to others does truly transform lives. This school year, this club has raised money for the Zamar school lunch program in Haiti, collected and sorted items to respond to victims of Hurricane Matthew, served as activity leaders and reading buddies at the Hill Street Daycare, worked on environmental stewardship projects, made eye glass cases for our vision clinics in the Dominican Republic, collected food and baby care items for ABCCM, gained person strength and new skills through acro-yoga, and will finish the year making bags for our washable sanitary pad kits for girls in the Dominican Republic. In all the ways that this club reaches out it also reaches in transforming the hearts of minds of these young servant-leaders.
