Meet the Kids from Shutka - 20 Jul 2012

Shutka is a small 'suburb' of Skopje (Macedonia) and is home to approximately 100,000 Roma. It's here, on one of the dirt streets beside piles of garbage that's been rooted through for anything of value that a family might be able to salvage or sell, that the Little Friends pre-school cares for up to 20 children.

These are wonderful, bright, young children from some of the very poorest families, kids that would otherwise be sent out to collect garbage or beg in the city centre. Here they slowly learn (children are taken in at the age of 4 until they graduate and go on to junior school at 7):

that there is a God who loves them,
that they have value and worth and
to treat others with respect and that same love that's been shown to them.
It's not rocket science - love children and they'll love others; Demonstrate the love of God to them and they'll see Jesus - but it's working and we believe that this, the largest Roma community in Europe, could be transformed in 2 generations. Let me explain…

When a child graduates from Little Friends the story is far from over. Teachers at the local school fight over them to try and get these well behaved (comparatively!) boys and girls in their class. Then as the weeks go by each child continues to receive input both at home and school from their Little Friends teachers - helping with homework, buying basic foodstuffs or school equipment, sitting with the family and simply talking and encouraging them.

For the next 8 years or thereabouts this continues until at the end of their education the kids are back in the community as adults, educated adults. They'll be the nurses and teachers, the doctors and engineers, the ones who bring hope to a place that lacks it. That's 20 children each year coming back to a community that needs them. Come On! We really could change their world.