A world where no child is forced to live on the street. Retrak has a vision of: A world where no child is forced to live on the street. Retrak is a Christian organisation with a bold vision of ‘A world where no child is forced to live on the street’.   But the reality is that every night, millions of children are forced to sleep on the street suffering hunger, poverty, abuse and violence and every day is a battle for survival.

But the reality is that each night, millions of children are forced to sleep on the street suffering hunger, poverty and abuse. In seven of the most deprived countries in the world, Retrak’s work impacted more than 24,000 beneficiaries last year.

Scripture tells us that ‘God sets the lonely in families, …’ Psalm 68:6 And yet, for a multitude of reasons, millions of children are forced to leave their families and fend for themselves.

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5 Children living on the streets are regularly beaten, robbed, and criminalised simply because they live on the street. But as Christians, We know this isn’t the way God intended it to be – this isn’t a reflection of God’s heart for these children.   In Psalm 68, the psalmist reminds us that God is a father to the fatherless and that he sets the lonely in families. But scripture doesn’t stop with how God feels about these people. It also makes very clear that we have a responsibility to show God’s heart and his way, by our actions, to a broken world.

Retrak’s centres offer hundreds of children the chance to be children again and to find a path back to a safe home in family and community.

If you give a dinner, don’t invite your friends - they can invite you back - but invite the poor, crippled and blind. (Luke 14:12/13 [para]) Scripture about spending yourself/care for marginalised/Orphans/Widows Economic stress and injustice is a major contributor to the reasons why children end up living on the streets. In Matthew 5:6 we read “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness” - Blessed are those who recognise that things aren’t the way they were supposed to be – and so daily they hunger and thirst for things to change and to be the way God intended. God’s heart for children, families, and communities drives who Retrak are and what we do as we work to be those who hunger and thirst for things to be the way God intended them to be.   As part of modelling the care and love of Jesus for these children, Retrak’s work is not just about reaching out but crucially, it’s also about securing a long term sustainable future for them in a safe home with family around them, or living independently within a community.

Through Self Help Groups, Retrak helps keep children safe by encouraging micro enterprise - economically strengthening families and communities. The final piece of the puzzle is Retrak’s prevention work. Our teams work to identify areas where children are particularly vulnerable and there we work to strengthen families both economically and socially and help them to deal with the issues that typically drive children to the streets. Through a simple but highly effective model of Self-Help groups Retrak help women develop new skills and help them to learn new ways of parenting their children. Retrak’s team also helps these women to set up a savings scheme into which they all save small amounts of money each week. This money is used to run a micro finance system that helps them take control of their own finances. In the 1st three years of Retrak’s community prevention work in Ethiopia, the six Self Help Groups have transformed the lives of more than 120 women and their families. Through this social and economic strengthening, Retrak is giving communities the tools they need to deal with the issues that drive children to the streets and helping to keep them at home instead.

Restoration is at the heart of the gospel As we said at the beginning, the vision of ’A world where no child is forced to live on the street’ is far from the reality that we see every day. But restoration is at the heart of the gospel – and a vision is seeing something that could be – seeing things the way God intended them to be – and then longing and working to see that become a reality.   Restoration is at the heart of the gospel

Father God, help us, along with Retrak, to play our part.