Children Services

SCRIPTURE PLACEMENT

 “And what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” 2Timothy 2:2

Today we reach out to over 12,500 children weekly through our programs. Still through these programs at least 35,000 evangelistic contacts have been made and over 300 churches have subscribed and are actively following the discipleship and leadership programs. Through these partnering churches we are now reaching out and training other churches in the different parts of the country.

Mercy Link Foundation Africa provides Scriptures using various methods. We do this through our school outreaches, through the trainings, through Community Evangelism, through the bible clubs, through our film ministry, through our partners, through the Sunday school programs, through the street evangelists, through our Humanitarian outreaches, and also through adult Literacy and Children’s Programs. Mercy Link therefore has Scripture Placement programs in schools, Communities, churches, local organizations, Juvenile homes, and now targeting Unreached Communities, Muslim dominated Communities, and Islands.

We also provide ministry materials for free to all our partners including;

  • Bibles and discipleship scripture portions
  • Tracts
  • Curriculum’s
  • Christian reading Books
  • Visuals
  • And other ministry materials available

Many communities both Christian dominated and not are faced with the challenge of bibles and other scripture potions. It’s a common phenomenon to find that the bible to people ration in a give church is 1:20. In many of the rural churches it’s only the pastor who owns a bible. Many of the believers cannot afford to buy one and even when able the distance to the nearest store is great. With the limited number of bibles, believers are faced with challenges in their spiritual growth and knowledge concerning their daily challenges in their Christian walk.

An estimated number of 3,000 bibles have been donated and distributed to the communities, over 350,000 tracts and children booklets served to over 360, 000 people. A significant number of these have become believers in Jesus Christ through this ministry. Over 15,000,000 people are ready and willing to receive these Christian literature in the different communities.

You Can Help

You can help by providing bibles to the communities, including full or New Testament bibles, Bibles for Children and Study Bibles for church leaders. Each gift of $10 will provide 1 Bible for a believer or 1 Study Bible for a Church Leader or 1 Children’s Story Bible for a child.

LIFE SKILLS

We undertake life skill programs in communities and schools around the country. Through these life skill programs we help impart psychosocial and interpersonal skills unto the children. The topics under these include substance abuse, peer pressure, sex, body change, peer pressure, decision making, time management, sexuality and a number of related topics.

Researchers have scrutinized and criticized that there is evidence showing how youth have actively involved in anti social behaviors such as aggression, breaking rules, adults modeling inappropriate behaviors, and among older adolescent athletes, the misuse of alcohol and illegal drugs hindering their self-esteem, emotional regulation, problem-solving, goal attainment, social skills, and academic performance.

There is increased need to teach more life skills to students. Today there are many kids who don’t know how to make right decisions and don’t know what they want to do career wise because they have no experience with anything other then the classes they take. Most students do not know what they want to be after school ends until after their sophomore year in college.

We believe Preparing for life should be a major focus in schools and families because when real life situations occur it may have nothing to do with what they have learnt in class. Learning about sex, relationships, hygiene, love etc, all those things you need to know in order to live a normal life. The life skills that people use to survive in the real world are not being taught to this younger generation. Partly because they don’t want to learn about them, but also because the parents of this generation are busy taken up by their own chores having no time to attend to their children.

We have therefore taken this mandate to introduce life skill programs in schools and communities so as to cub the challenges the young generation are bound to face as a result of lacking in this area.

CHILD PROTECTION

At Mercy Link, we focus much on promoting children rights and wellbeing. This is a program we have set much of our focus on. Mercy Link Child Protection program offers a child-centered, family-focused service to protect children and young people from significant harm caused by abuse or neglect within and outside the family. We also aim at ensuring that children and young people receive services to deal with the affect of abuse and neglect on their wellbeing and development. This we do in partnership with different organizations socialized in offering such services.

As an organization, our primary focus is to create awareness on the rights and wellbeing of children in the communities. This we do by doing sensitization campaigns in communities, schools, churches, and other local institutions. Through this program, we have set up right groups in the communities, schools ad churches whose primary role is to educate the rest of the communities on the rights of children but also ensure that these rights are implemented and also identify cases of abuse in the communities, schools and the different institutions.

As an organization, our role in the Child Protection domain is to:

  1. Receive reports from people who believe a child needs protection from abuse or neglect.
  2. Provide advice to people who report cases of abuse or neglect.
  3. Probe to find out if a child is believed to have been abused or is at risk of abuse or neglect.
  4. Refer children and families to services in the community for ongoing support and harm prevention.
  5. Do continued follow-ups on children recommended to ensure that they are being cared for and are receiving support.

The Fund addresses the following issues in its activity:

  1. Attracting the attention of different organizations and the public to the problems of children;
  2. Bringing together the resources of the church, local and international organizations, partners civil society and the business community to address the challenges associated with improving the quality of life of the younger generation and developing and deepening cooperation for studying and solving children’s problems;
  3. Collecting financial, material and other resources to carry out statutory tasks and provide assistance and support to large and vulnerable families, needy and sick children, children with disabilities, orphanages and kindergartens, boarding schools, rehabilitation centers for minors, children’s associations and other organizations dealing with children’s issues;
  4. Helping children and teenagers in the development of their intellectual and creative potential, creation of conditions for the development of young talent through life skill programs;
  5. Arrangement of charitable events and activities for children and teenagers, including joint celebrations and rehabilitation activities for children with disabilities and their healthy peers among which include parties, camps, mini conferences, trainings, gala’s and community based clubs;
  6. Moral/life skill and discipleship education of young people, teaching children and teenagers to live pure lives in honor and fear of God, culture and traditions.

As part of the Program the organization actively solicits for funds and participates/ receives any charitable support financially and materially in this area to implement its social programs and projects to benefit the children and young people.

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT TRAUMA COUNSELING  

Trauma refers to the body or mind being overwhelmed by traumatic events. Psychological trauma in particular occurs as a result of a distressing event that leads the sufferer to question their beliefs while destroying their assumptions of trust.

  •  It was unexpected;
  •  The person was unprepared; and
  •  There was nothing the person could do to prevent it from happening.

There are a number of causes to these traumatic disorders the children and young people face ranging from physically, emotionally or socially factors. Some of these being

  • Abuse- Physical, emotional, sexual or verbal abuse.
  • Accidents- Accidents, a bad fall and accidentally harming someone else leading to traumatic feelings.
  • Catastrophic events- Earthquakes, drought as man-made events like war and bombings.
  • Physical injury- leading to disabilities, chronic pain etc. Either way, this kind of trauma often requires a great deal of emotional support alongside physical rehabilitation.
  • Violence- physical violence, threatened with violence or even witnessed violence

As a result the children have suffered a number of disorders including

  •  Flashbacks
  • Insomnia
  • Anxiety.
  • Stress
  • Anger
  • Depression
  • Loss of self-esteem
  • Emotional detachment

These and more trauma challenges spread through out the different communities in Uganda. As a result almost half the children in a given community live at risk due to the ongoing threats to their lives.

 As a result of this, we have developed “The Raising Hope” Curriculum comprised of a trainer of trainer’s manual, a 13 lesson Guide and a Children’s Booklet to help the children deal with their psychological and spiritual needs. The curriculum is comprised of a thirteen lesson guide that’s aimed at empowering and equipping the children on right living but also help them overcome trauma and other life challenges in their lives. This tool covers a number of topics ranging from forgiveness, unity, reconciliation among others. The curriculum has been quickly adopted as a tool to help the children overcome trauma in the refugee camps in Adjumani in Nothern Uganda, KejuKeji and Juba in Southern Sudan. The local leaders in Adjumani are using the curriculum to engage and penetrate the resistant masses at the camps. 2,660 children in the camps have already been incorporated into the program.