Show us how you're Better for Kids!

We know that you’re Better for Kids!  Here’s your chance to share your story and let all of us know what you’re doing in your community to make a difference in the lives of children and families.  Your story will be featured in our Community Section and Better for Kids blog. There will also be "You're Better For Kids" giveaways!

Please send us:

• Stories
• Photos
• Events
• Web sites

Click here to submit your story!

Love. Hope. Renewal.

Click here to view the Better for Kids site.

Foto Friday!

Meet Durga of the Refugee Sewing Society (RSS). She is a refugee who escaped genocide and now resides in Clarkston, GA. She is an active member of RSS.

Click here to learn more about how RSS is making an impact in the lives of refugee women.

Foto Friday!

We currently have a Mercy Ministry program in an area called Ezbet El Nakhl in Egypt.  Our Mercy Minister visits these families weekly and shares the gospel with them, prays with them and also gives them food or other items that their family needs such as clothing or school supplies for the kids. 

Read more @ betterforkids.org

Global Views on Challenges Facing Children

Members of the World Forum community were invited to respond to the question: "What is the most urgent challenge facing young children in your country?" Here are some of their responses:

Africa:

• Cameroon: Insecurity. Young children face lots of insecurity, both from health hazards and poor parenting skills. Children suffer from neglect, deprivation, and related violence from the very people who are supposed to protect them.
• Kenya: Both indoor and outdoor spaces are small resulting in overcrowding. Inadequate school feeding programs. 
• Nigeria: Poverty, with its concomitant effects such as malnutrition, diseases, and squalor, is the most urgent challenge facing young children in Nigeria. 
• Sierra Leone: The absence of learning resource materials. 
• Tanzania: Lack of adequate basic needs causes many children to be malnourished; hence they become vulnerable to so many diseases.

Europe:

• Belgium: The greatest challenge for today and the future is to adapt the ECE system to the growing number of children whose first language is not Dutch or French.
• Moldova: Many children do not have the needed support for their developmental and learning due to poverty, neglect, and non-existing or low-quality education services. 

Arab Region:

• Egypt: The main challenge would be how to introduce Egyptian children to democratic values, and ensure the right for expression, which should be a reflection of the latest democratic changes in Egypt.
• Iran: Economic and political hardship which has caused depression in families, forcing academics into early years, trying to impose their view of religion on children in every way, and lacking knowledge about developmentally appropriate practice.
• Lebanon: The most serious challenge facing young children in Lebanon today is the wide disparity between urban and rural children. 

Asia/Pacific:

• Australia: Indigenous children continue to report a depleted sense of belonging; many also display unacceptably low levels of literacy and numeracy.

The Americas

• Brazil: Children face inequity and social disparity at such a high level that it jeopardizes the development of all children: rich, middle class, and most of all the children of poverty.
• United States: The greatest challenge I see facing young children is the growing number of children in poverty who are not getting the proper nurturance and intellectual stimulation they deserve. 

See the expanded version of this article online here.

Source: www.ccie.com 

Movement - Alliance for a Healthier Generation

www.healthiergeneration.org
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation works to address one of the nation’s leading public health threats—childhood obesity. The goal of the Alliance is to reduce the prevalence of childhood obesity by 2015, and to empower kids nationwide to make healthy lifestyle choices. Founded in 2005 by the American Heart Association and William J. Clinton Foundation, the Alliance works to positively affect the places that can make a difference in a child’s health: homes, schools, doctor’s offices, and communities. 

Stick Your Neck Out - A Street-Smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond

Stick Your Neck Out is a comprehensive and practical guide to the skills, qualities, and strategies you need to make a difference, covering every aspect of working for change-from choosing an issue to mapping out a plan, creating a vision of success, organizing a team, building trust, resolving conflicts, working with the media, moving through bureaucracies, setting legal strategies and more. Filled with practical tips and inspiring examples of real people, this book provides the missing link between ideas and ideals on one hand, and effective action on the other.

Find it here.

Start a movement!

Small acts can make a big difference!

Identify a cause that you and your staff feel strongly about and establish a fund to support it. Having children attend a school that cares about the bigger picture means a lot to parents. You will be surprised how quickly the contributions add up!

A thoughtful PureFUN! employee took the iniative of starting a "Haiti Fund" in our office. It has been about a month now and we have raised almost $2,000!

betterforkids.org - Embracing Ethiopia

Ethiopia: Hanna’s Orphan Home (HOH) (est. 2010)

Our orphanage in Ethiopia is home to 20 orphans from the local village of Zeway.  Hanna Teshome is the director of the home and cares for the children along with house mothers.  These children once slept on floors with no blankets,  received only 1 meal a day, and had no one to care for them.  They now have beds, clothes on their bodies, and enjoy 3 meals a day!  They attend school and receive love and compassion from Hanna and the house mothers.  The change in these children since coming to the orphanage is remarkable!  The evidence is in the photos.  Check out the photo gallery of our Ethiopia Orphans to see these beautiful faces.

www.betterforkids.org

Better In Action Team - May Recap

PureFUN! is deeply passionate about "making things better for others by giving ourselves away." We have created the "Better In Action" initiative to act on our passions. Here is a recap of how we made things better for others by giving ourselves away during the month of May.

A Day of Hope 2011 - The vision of A Day of Hope 2011 outreach is to promote unity among churches, ministries and non-profit organizations by serving together for the purpose of regenerating* our community.

TACA Georgia Family Picnic - Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) is a national non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to educating, empowering and sup- porting families affected by autism. For families who have just received the autism diagnosis, TACA aims to speed up the cycle time from the autism diagnosis to effective treatments. TACA helps to strengthen the autism community by connecting families and the professionals who can help them, allowing them to share stories and information to help improve the quality of life for people with autism.

Cox Cottage - Helping provide a safe and supportive living environment for struggling girls.

Refugee Sewing Society - The Refugee Sewing Society serves refugee women who have fled genocide by providing an atmosphere for healing, an opportunity to express creativity, a means for building self-esteem, and a source of income.

Metro Merge - Metro Merge is a non-profit vision working to strengthen for-profit business in our under-resourced neighborhood.

EGSS Orphanage in Egypt - Update

Many of you are reading, hearing and being bombarded concerning the crisis, trials and difficulties we face as Christians in Egypt! Yet, the Lord's ministry here in our land is growing! Our ministry team is encouraged as they have been able to share the gospel to many precious souls during the past months!

The challenge that the Lord has put on our hearts to reach about 1,000 people in 10 different poor areas in Egypt is becoming a reality and is now expanding through our ministry team in Ethiopia! Now we have a program of weekly visits to almost 800 people in 160 homes in both countries! It is amazing to read all the stories in the monthly reports about each family. God is at work and we are blessed to be a part of this ministry.

www.betterforkids.org

FCS Urban Ministries

Our mission is to create healthy places in the city where families flourish and God’s shalom is present.


FCS (focus community strategies) is a collective of visionaries and social entrepreneurs, transforming distressed urban neighborhoods through Christian community development.


fcsministries.org 

Partner - South Atlanta Bike Shop

South Atlanta Bike Shop is a non-profit youth development program in the Historic South Atlanta. Youth in our neighborhood, ages 11-18, can earn “shop bucks” by working in the bike shop and spend these to purchase bicycles, bicycle accessories, replacement parts and pay for bike trip registration fees.

In the process of earning a bicycles they acquire job readiness and leadership/management skills.

The donated bicycles we repair are placed for sale at affordable prices in our neighborhood thrift store: The South Atlanta Marketplace.

southatlantabikeshop.org

Foto Friday!

Hanna's Orphan Home
Zeway, Ethiopia
www.betterforkids.org

ATL Area Event - Alphabet Soup

Alphabet Soup
June 23 - 10:30 to 11:15
Ages 2 to 6 yodel, crow, sing and wiggle in this fun-filled music program. Reservations begin June 16th.
Roswell Library - 115 Norcross Street, Roswell, GA 30075

Message from the Orphanage in Cairo

Please continue to pray for Egypt and its people.

Pray for wisdom for all those who are in authority.

Pray for the families who lost their loved ones in the violence, and those who are injured.

Pray that the spirit of fanaticism and extremism would not penetrate our society.

Pray that the flame which came out the Churches while burning may become the spirit’s fire to surround and protect Christians in Egypt. “And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will be its glory within.” Zechariah 2:5

Pray for our churches, so that we can fix our eyes on God who is in control.

Foto Friday!

Meet Nancy Tharwat Shawky.  

She is visited weekly by our Mercy Ministers in Egypt.

Nancy and her family get physical and spiritual support with the help of Better For Kids.

Refugee Sewing Society

This is a photo taken at a recent visit to the Refugee Sewing Society. The women from the Advanced Sewing group are standing in front of a blanket PureFUN! employees gave them.

Read more about how the Refugee Sewing Society impacts the lives of refugee women here.

Mercy Ministry

Meet Rania! She is one of our Mercy Ministry children in Egypt. She's in 1st grade and she loves to collect coins & play puzzles. One day she wants to own a clothes shop! Meet the rest of our Mercy Ministry kids here.

The purpose of Mercy Ministry is to reach outside the walls of our orphanage and impact other vulnerable children in nearby villages with the gospel. We financially and spiritually support local churches, believers and ministers who help these children and their families.

Through this program we can provide clothing, food, medical attention, Bibles and school supplies to children outside the orphanage who need them most. Along the way, these Mercy Ministers are able to demonstrate God’s love in tangible ways that bring these children and their families hope.

Click here to find out more.

Foto Friday!

Meet Harka of the Refugee Sewing Society (RSS). She is a refugee who escaped genocide and now resides in Clarkston, GA. She is an active member of RSS.

Click here to learn more about how RSS is making an impact in the lives of refugee women.