Children & Youth
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Photo: Sean Sheridan for Mercy Corps
Teaching the next generation and keeping them healthy are essential to tomorrow's strong, vibrant societies. Mercy Corps works with communities to shelter and nurture children and youth through innovative education, sports and job training programs.
Through the power of sports, community service and vocational training, we empower young people to make smart life choices and find a productive place in the changing global economy.
Our signature Comfort for Kids program focuses on helping children process trauma after natural disasters and conflict. See our expert's recommendations for how parents and caregivers can help children through times of crisis ▸
All stories about Children & Youth
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Celebrating Peace Day with major league soccer September 21, 2011
Mercy Corps taps into soccer's popularity and convening power to engage young people and their communities for positive change. We call these programs Sport for Change.
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DR Congo: Patience and Promise September 14, 2011
These two girls live in a displacement camp in eastern Congo.
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Japan: Six months after the quake September 11, 2011
Six months after the massive 9.0 earthquake struck eastern Japan on March 11, Mercy Corps continues to work with our partner agency, Peace Winds Japan, to bring relief and recovery to people in need.
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Remembering 9/11, honoring Comfort for Kids September 9, 2011
As the difficult anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2001 looms, those of us old enough to remember it cannot but think to where we were and what we were doing when the planes hit, and in retrospect, how our individual lives as well as our country has changed.
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Libya: Metamorphosis of a parking lot September 7, 2011
During the holy month of Ramadan, kids here had an opportunity to leave their homes after months of instability and enjoy the evenings with friends and family.
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Libya: Helping children heal September 5, 2011
I recently caught up with Dr. Omar Reda, a Libyan-American psychiatrist who’s helping Mercy Corps set up psychosocial programs for children affected by the conflict there.
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Georgia: Orphaned girl in Georgia August 29, 2011
I remember photographing her and her friends in an arts and crafts room at the orphanage. The whole place had a beautiful post-Soviet patina that is hard to find. It seemed as though the orphanage was built in the era of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.
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Somalia: Walking for weeks to reach Mogadishu's sprawling camps August 19, 2011
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Zimbabwe: Vocational training helps youths find jobs in Zimbabwe August 18, 2011
Twenty-year-old Nyasha Zulu and 21-year-old Simbarashe Mudara have lived most of their lives in the dormitory town of Chitungwiza, 30 kilometers from Zimbabwe's capital, Harare.
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Egypt, Libya, West Bank and Gaza: Reasons for hope August 18, 2011
For much of July, I visited Mercy Corps' country programs in the West Bank and Gaza, Egypt and Libya. On my return, I wanted to share my thoughts on the challenges we face there and also the reasons that I came away hopeful. At the political level, things are fairly bleak.