Faith that sticks: How grace, relationships and exploring doubt help young people to stay

Do you ever wonder how you can help a young person grow in their faith? Are you curious about spiritual development in youth? Dr. Kara Powell introduces us to her research in this compelling interview with Compassion Canada. CC: Kara, can you introduce yourself and tell us what you’ve been working on lately?  KP: I’m […]

9 years of care: How Compassion’s child development model helped these triplets

At Compassion, we are passionate about holistic child development. This means we don’t simply respond to poverty by handing out food or Bibles. Instead, we seek to develop children in all the different aspects of their lives while equipping local churches to share the love of Jesus with them and to journey with them through […]

How does your garden grow: Compassion staff share about their backyard gardens

What’s as small a crumb but can fill many plates? A seed, of course! Seeds are miraculous things. In backyard and community gardens across Canada, one little seed can produce up to 40 zucchinis over a summer. One cherry tomato transplant can have you picking bowls of colourful produce from July to September. Food gardens […]

What role does the family play in child development?

At Compassion, we’re serious about child development and releasing children from poverty in every area of life: physically, cognitively, socially, economically and spiritually. Poverty is far-reaching and multi-faceted, and our approach to fighting it needs to be, too. But a child’s development doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Stability and connectedness are woven into the very […]

Beginnings: How to start a life’s story with hope

Once upon a time. Four words that transport you into someone else’s story. Four words that imply a happy ending is waiting at the end. This unfolding phrase sets the tone for the rest of the story, infusing the possible danger, despair and disaster found within the plot with something powerful: hope. There’s no denying […]

Growing resilience: 3 ways Compassion is helping families overcome food insecurity

Why is it that some people can survive a crisis and others struggle? Why does a changing environment devastate some communities but go nearly unnoticed elsewhere? The answer is simple. Resilience. A community resilient to crisis   When we talk about resiliency at Compassion—whether it is regarding food insecurity or another crisis— it isn’t the […]

Dear parent: What’s the hardest conversation you’ve ever had?

The door clicks shut. You lean against the threshold with the whirlwind of school pick-up, homework, dinner, bath time and bedtime behind you. Whew. Your partner bends over the notice that came in the mail today. And in the space between your exhale and inhale, you step back into the responsibility of parenthood. One, two, […]

How to share stories about poverty with dignity

Have you ever had to choose a photo to represent yourself? If you have, you will know it is not done carelessly or without consideration. Why? Because you want it to represent you well. This is a value that Compassion holds for the children we serve. We want to represent them well—with dignity, honesty and […]

A diary of clean water: My memories of when clean water changed everything

Meet Egodine. This eight-year-old girl lives in a small community in northwestern Burkina Faso, where the sky is expansive, the dirt is deep red dust and the horizon is punctuated by vegetation that can weather the dry seasons. Egodine loves where she lives—it’s her home. But her small community does not have a clean water […]