By Chris Yow, Editor
TRUSSVILLE — Wondering what living in poverty is really like? Not American poverty, but what it’s like to live in Uganda or Bolivia. Compassion International has teamed up with North Park Baptist Church to bring The Compassion Experience to Trussville.
The four day expo will be set up in the parking lot of the church from Jan. 20-23. The Compassion Experience is designed to educate visitors about the realities of life in poverty as well as provide an international experience to visitors who may not ever have the opportunity to travel abroad to a developing country.
Visitors will be invited on a self-guided journey where they will be immersed in the lives and stories of two children living in Uganda or Bolivia. Each child’s story starts in hardship but ends in hope.
The experience includes more than 2,000 square feet of exhibit space, featuring replicas of the homes and environments of these two Compassion beneficiaries. The event is free and family-friendly.
“We built ‘The Compassion Experience’ in order to really bring the developing world to America,” said Mark Hanlon, Compassion International’s senior vice president of global marketing and engagement. “When people think of poverty, they often think of the lack of things, the lack of stuff, the lack of money. Those are all symptoms of poverty. The real issue of poverty is the lack of hope. Through our holistic child development program, Compassion stirs hope in children. And you’ll see that hope come to life at this event.”
The interactive tour uses iPods and headsets to give visitors a sense of what life in poverty really is. The World Bank estimates 700 million people live on less than $1.90 per day. In the areas Compassion serves, nearly one in five children die before the age of five, mostly from preventable causes, and 124 million children worldwide do not attend school, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS).
Tour-goers will have the opportunity to “change the story” of children living in poverty by learning more about the issue, as well as Compassion’s child sponsorship program, which tackles global poverty one child at a time. Compassion currently serves more than 1.9 million children in 26 of the world’s most impoverished countries.
For more information about “The Compassion Experience,” visit www.CompassionExperience.com, @compassion_exp on Twitter, and www.facebook.com/CompassionExperience on Facebook.