National day of compassion, children at the heart of the celebration

© Afreepress ( january the 8 th, 2013)- Some two thousand children and more than two thousand parents, pastors, and leaders of Child Development Centers make a dash for the Congress Hall of Lomé this January 5, 2013 in order to celebrate the first edition of the national day of compassion.
For more than 4 hours, the various participants thought only about the children in Togo. The challenge was how to deliver them from their poor situation. Compassion International Togo, an American NGO, and its church partners chose that day to advocate for poor children.

In his opening allocution, the country director of Compassion International Togo, Komlavi Ataty told the audience that it is a bounden duty to show compassion to the poor and underprivileged children, poor and vulnerable who are around us. Mr. Ataty said the national day of compassion is a day that Compassion International and its church partners in Togo have initiated to invite stakeholders and especially parents to show more love to their children in difficult situations. "Many children are on the streets with no parents and no support. Some die just because their parents cannot afford to purchase cheap medicine. This day was established for each of us to think about these little ones," he added. He further invited the assistance to sponsor children as others are already doing it around the world.

The Regional Director for Compassion International in charge of West Africa, Dr. John Laba, explained that Compassion International has more than 1.5 million children in the world today and more than one hundred twenty thousand in West Africa. Dr. Laba took the opportunity to express his gratitude for the organizers of such a day, a day just to think about the child. He recalled the mission of Compassion International, which states as follows: "In response to the Great Commission, Compassion International exists to protect children by delivering them from their spiritual, economic, social, and physical poverty by empowering them to become responsible and fulfilled Christian adults." He then reiterated that Compassion is an instrument that God has made available to the church so that it saves the children from poverty in Jesus' name through its holistic development program, that is to say full and complete development program.

Today, Compassion International Togo is in partnership with 83 local churches. To achieve the holistic development objective, several other actions are taken. Since 2008 until now, Compassion has distributed nets in the fight against malaria, the major source of children’s death in sub-Saharan Africa. Boreholes were also built in communities to solve the shortage of drinking water. For drinking water quality, water filters were recently distributed to households. Children registered in projects receive adequate and complete medical care, monitoring academic is complete and sponsored children often receive gifts from their sponsors.

During the national day of compassion, the public was kept in suspense by children full of talents. Various activities such as sketches, choreography and preaching the Word of God have been provided by the children. In conjunction with this event, the hall of the congress of Lomé was the venue for an exhibition of art works produced by children.
Representatives of the various ecclesiastical associations and well-known gospel singers like Makafui Abitor, Guy Rodrigue and Emilie Adjenou also took the opportunity to encourage children and invited people to sponsor children in order to rescue them from of poverty.