SIEM REAP, Cambodia--For 100 children too young to remember and 8.5 million adults hoping to forget, this piece of Cambodia is more than just home. Weaving between piles of trash and the muddy ruts of motorbikes, Touch Dara barely looks at the ground as his bare feet tread softly across the country's second largest Killing Field. Beneath him lie the bones of his parents and an estimated one million Cambodians slaughtered or starved by the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. Surrounding him are the 100 children who call Wat Thmei home.
SAN SALVADOR--None of 20-year-old Rachel Ortega’s 26 children were alive during El Salvador’s turbulent civil war. Nor can they remember its U.N.-brokered end in 1992. Inhabiting a gritty concrete compound complete with begging dogs, plenty of mosquitoes and a finicky faucet, Rachel, her husband and their exceptional brood represent both the madness and hope of this tiny country. Brutal gang violence, rampant HIV, persistent poverty and a desperate exodus to the United States have created 22,000 Salvadoran orphans. But for the Ortegas' children, love and hope have four walls.
How can we help children in the developing world get ahead? Is it as easy as a Good Search? Is the answer on iTunes? Can a cow help fund a college education? Does it trickle up? Is it a mix of cornmeal, soy and milk? Is a better and broader education just a click (and a crank) away? Are chickens the foundation of a safer and richer community? What can a roundtrip airline ticket do? Why should we care about the seventh generation? Scholars, NGOs, relief workers and people across the globe weigh in on the little beginnings we need to aspire to the great things the world's children deserve.
Copyright 2007 the begin with little ones project
"You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones." -St. Augustine Privacy Policy
The University of Southern California does not screen or control the content on this website and thus does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity, or quality of such content. All content on this website is provided by and is the sole responsibility of the person from which such content originated, and such content does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the University administration or the Board of Trustees
Welcome to Amor y Esperanza
10 little beginnings, one great aspiration