Purpose

The One-to-One Project is designed to offer encouragement and fill the loneliness gap that occurs when a child parent(s) leaves their child in the village with grandparents, or in a residential school, and go to another geographic area for better job and financial stability, thus limiting the child’s access to them during these formative years of their lives.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Good Health and Well-Being; Education; Poverty – Family attachment and parent/child relationships are important to building bonds and having strong role models and parental guidance. Often poverty forces parents to leave their children behind, sometimes returning only once per year, and they miss the opportunity for their child to have a normal childhood and parents as role models. The leader of this program was a left behind child and said he created this project because he did not want any child to be as lonely as he had been as a child.

Project Actions

One-to-One team members visit a school and teach children leadership skills and problem solving. Another group of members write letters to children in the school and develop friendships that encourage them to be optimistic. Through the game activity of understanding body parts, they were taught their own physiological characteristics and how to protect themselves. English training is also offered in another community to expand the children’s horizons and enhance their leadership. Volunteers assist the children to solve the problems with their studies and in their lives. Children begin to know themselves, explore and expand their boundaries through the education of nature, history, and culture. The economic needs of families and lack of opportunities to earn an affordable living in rural areas has encouraged thousands of parents to seek jobs in urban areas that offer better wages. The One-to-One Project gives personal attention to individual children encouraging them to express their own thoughts, enhance self-confidence, and to know that someone cares for them and wants them to succeed. This opens a bigger world to these children who are isolated in villages and introduces them to university students who encourage and motivate them to study hard to get a better education. Some of the team members were also left behind children and understand the importance of having someone to communicate and learn with. The bonding between the left behind child and the Project members establishes a partnership to expand their boundaries and understand the circumstances in their lives.

Fifty-four members connected with seventy-five children this year.