Aroma Smokey Mountain

Smokey Mountain is a very large rubbish dump in Manila, Philippines. Consisting of over two million tonnes of waste, it has operated for more than 40 years and is known for decomposing at such high temperatures that it will catch fire, a fact from which the location derives its name. Indeed, fires at Smokey Mountain have caused many deaths.

Smokey Mountain has a large squatter community, and it is estimated that 30,000 people live near the site, and make their living from picking through the rubbish at Smokey Mountain. Life expectancy is low.

According to a UN-Habitat report, 40% of Filipinos live in abject poverty. That’s more than 30 million people; almost half the population of the UK.

For further information and photos by  Hartmut Schwarzbach the award winning photographer -

The Charcoal Children of Manila

Niños Tiznados

Hartmund Schwarzbach

African AIDS Orphans

Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 15 million children under 18 have been orphaned as a result of AIDS. Around 11.6 million of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa. In countries badly affected by the epidemic it is estimated that 20 percent of children under 17 are orphans – most of whom have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

Even with the expansion of antiretroviral treatment access, it is estimated that by 2015, the number of orphaned children will still be overwhelmingly high.

Clowns Without Borders

Payasos  Sin Fronteras or Clowns Without Borders was founded in Barcelona, Spain in July 1993. The idea began when Tortell Poltrona, a professional clown in Spain, was invited to perform in a refugee camp in Croatia. This performance unexpectedly attracted audiences of more than 700 children, proving to Poltrona that there can be a great need and appreciation for clowns and entertainment in crisis situations.  He founded Clowns Without Borders to offer humour as a means of psychological support to communities that have suffered trauma.

African Children’s Choir

The African Children’s Choir™ is made up of some of the neediest and most vulnerable children in their countries. Many have lost one or both parents to poverty or disease. The African Children’s Choir™ helps these children break away from the everyday cycle of poverty and hopelessness.

Sponsor a Child

Change the life of a child … forever.

Compassion International

World Vision

Child Pornography

No to Child Pornography (video)

Child pornography refers to images or films depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child; as such, child pornography is a visual record of child sexual abuse. Abuse of the child occurs during the sexual acts which are photographed in the production of child pornography, and the effects of the abuse on the child (and continuing into maturity) are compounded by the wide distribution and lasting availability of the photographs of the abuse.In both common usage and for research purposes, the word “child” in the phrase “child pornography” refers to prepubescent children, and does not (as the legal use would) include post-pubertal minors, such as teenagers under the age of majority.  Most possessors of child pornography who are arrested are found to possess images of prepubescent children; possessors of pornographic images of post-puberty minors are less likely to be prosecuted, even though those images also fall within the statutes.

Child Marriage

Yemeni child bride, 12, dies in labour

A 12-year-old Yemeni child-bride died after struggling for three days in labour to give birth, a local human rights organization said.
Fawziya Abdullah Youssef died of severe bleeding on Friday, 11.Sept.2009 while giving birth to a stillborn in the al-Zahra district hospital of Hodeida province, 140 miles west of the capital San’a.
Child marriages are widespread in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, where tribal customs dominate society. More than a quarter of the country’s females marry before age 15, according to a recent report by the Social Affairs Ministry.
Youssef was only 11 when her father married her to a 24-year-old man who works as a farmer in Saudi Arabia.

Childhood Death

Around the world, some 26,500 children die every day.

That is equivalent to:

1 child dying every 3 seconds
18 children dying every minute
A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every week
An Iraq-scale death toll every 15–36 days
Almost 10 million children dying every year
Some 60 million children dying between 2000 and 2006

The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. In spite of the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.

Global Issues

International Aid

Child Abuse

Jesus said,
“Let the little children come to me,
and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Matthew 19:14

A compassionate government keeps faith with
the trust of the people and cherishes the future of their children.

Lyndon Baines Johnson