In Thailand the CWS child safeguarding team is working to support The Church of Christ in Thailand as it mobilizes its communities – schools, orphanages, churches and hospitals – to understand and embraces its 2016 Child Safeguarding Code of Conduct. Recently, the team surveyed young students about their feelings safety and, more broadly, their happiness […]

On my third day with the Church World Service team in Vietnam, we traveled into the northern Vietnamese hills to visit two schools and learn about the progress of the newly developed children’s interest groups. We arrived at Ta Mung Ethnic Minority Boarding Primary School first and were greeted by the school’s deputy Headmaster, Ms. […]

By Tran Van Thang, CWS Project Officer. Hoang Thi Nu is a little girl of the Thai ethnic group living in Muong Kim commune, where CWS partners with schools to improve student learning environments, including the library and the reading activities it promotes. Nu is in Grade 5, which is the last grade of primary […]

Education is one way to inspire hope among displaced and at-risk children, including those who are separated from their families as refugees and asylum seekers in foreign countries far from their homelands. Nowhere is this more evident than in Jakarta, Indonesia, where CWS staff see that there is a thirst for education among the multicultural […]

For unaccompanied refugee children living in CWS-hosted group homes in Jakarta, Indonesia, soccer means something different than in many places. Played most by boys seeking asylum and safety from war-torn countries around the world, soccer represents a real kind of freedom – if only momentary freedom from worry and fear about the future. While all […]

By Nguyen Van Ty, CWS Program Officer, and Leslie Wilson, Asia Regional Director. Like many other schools in rural mountainous areas in Vietnam, the very remote Ta Mung kindergarten has an even more remote satellite school in Lun village where, amazingly, almost 100 pre-school children aged 3- to 6-years old come to learn and play […]

Speaking to hundreds of Church of Christ in Thailand pastors about “how to grow a healthy church”, General Secretary Elder Surapong Mitrakul chose to highlight the importance of children by focusing on some who attend Church-sponsored schools. The CWS-supported Child Safeguarding Team was gratified to see that the General Secretary used information and data they […]

“It took me an hour to walk here, but I’m happy. I usually visit the school every two weeks.” – Giang Thi Seo, H’Mong woman. I met with Giang Thi Seo during my recent visit to a school in Ta Mung commune, where CWS is partnering with local government workers to improve education in this […]

by Nguyen Thi Hai Yen, CWS Program Officer for Education Inspired by joining a CWS-led workshop about child-friendly libraries, Le Thi Kim Lan, from the Than Uyen district Education Department, shared her thoughts when we met again after some time: “You know, Yen, we teachers used to share ideas about child-friendly libraries during summer vacation […]

“It was such a meaningful and interesting teacher training session!” “We have never, ever had a good training course like this!” “I didn’t even mind that it was on the weekend outside work time!” These are just a few answers from the teachers who were asked about a recent First Aid skills hosted by the […]

Recently, the CWS Thailand child protection project team, who work with The Church of Christ in Thailand, hosted a Code of Conduct for Child Safeguarding information-sharing session for four new volunteer teachers from Nagaland. Since the young women will be teaching in schools that follow the Church’s child safeguarding policy, CWS team members Suchawalee (Bon, […]

Recently, CWS colleagues Suchawalee (Bon) Mankhong and Ponsawan (Cake) Lysoowan, who are seconded to work with the Office of Child Protection at The Church of Christ in Thailand, traveled to west-central Thailand to lead an information-sharing session about the CCT Child Safeguarding Code of Conduct. Since many church members in the six Thai provinces whose […]

Now that The Church of Christ in Thailand has finalized its Child Safeguarding Code of Conduct, CWS is supporting a follow-on initiative for three child safeguarding specialists to reach out to communities within the Church – schools, hospitals and congregations – to review and understand the details of the Code of Conduct. Altogether, the Church […]

Aziz* is from Afgooye in Somalia, and his story echoes that of many other boys who flee their country to get away from a militia trying to make them join their ranks. Also, like many others, after a long journey through Malaysia, he arrived alone in Indonesia and found his way to the United Nations […]

The Community Health Center (Puskesmas) in Oekam village, West Timor, in the only clinic for people from 10 villages in Timor Tengah Selatan (TTS) district, and Vera Kuli has been working there for the past six years. Part of her role is monitoring children’s nutritional status in all 10 villages; and, in this role, she […]

Nang Aye Khaing (Ma Nang) is 38 and lives in Auk Htone village in Southwest Myanmar with her husband U Aung Min and three children: a daughter, 17, and two sons, 11 and 5. The family runs a small grocery store and basket weaving business from their home which, alarmingly, has lost six acres of […]

Nafyar* was 12 when men from the Al-Shabab militia entered her hometown in Somalia, killing her parents and older siblings. Nafar survived by hiding until the militia left, and then a kind-hearted neighbor helped her escape to Kenya. After living in Kenya for two years, and after a long journey by ways of Malaysia, Nafyar […]

CWS Japan Partnership Helps Myint Myint Kyi, who is known as Ma Kyi, is 22 years old and lives in Inn Tae Su village in Maubin Township of Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady Region. She is married and, with her husband, Ye Lay, who is 31 years old, she has two boys: Zin Myo Oo is 5 years […]

For more than 20 years, hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers from Myanmar (Burma) have lived inside Thailand along the Thai-Myanmar border – next to their country yet far from their homes . Last week, I visited one refugee camp that is home to about 6,000 people, mainly from the Karen ethnic group, who live […]

Phi Hung is a four-year old boy from Vietnam’s La Hu ethnic minority group who, along with his two-year-old brother and countless other ethnic minority children, does not have a birth certificate. When his parents joined a child rights awareness-raising session in his village, they like all others in remote Mu Chi village (Muong Te […]