Now I feel it appropriate to tell you WHO our target demographic is: the displaced.
Due to political, economic and safety issues, many citizens in the rural areas (mostly farmers) had to abruptly leave their homes and enter into the major cities. Many of those who left did so with only the clothes on their backs, as their property earned them little-to-no value at that point.
The effect on the cities and the migrating population is much like that of the urban swelling that happened in the US and other Western countries 100-200 years ago. Imagine that scenario multiplied by the resulting loss of Hurricane Katrina. Cramped quarters, makeshift shanties, tremendous competition for fewer jobs, economic upheaval…
There is only so much work for the unskilled and uneducated laborer, so many of the displaced cannot find adequate wages or housing. And the children who are growing up in this environment – who deal with poverty in many of the same ways that other children and young people around the world deal with poverty – often resort to lives of cyclical hopelessness, meandering, frustration, violence, despair, lostness…
We believe that there is a friend who hears our needs, who listens to our hearts’ murmurs, who can meet us where we are and who is stronger than any adversary. We want to be a part of introducing these young people (and, in effect, their families) to this wonderful counselor and abiding friend. We want to help build bridges that will support them, enable and empower them in community and in Christ from now through eternity. And we want to step in and celebrate the good work that the Christian community is doing now for and with the displaced in Medellin, Colombia.
