Isabella says she is “trusting in God for protection.” Like many thousands of Christian children around the globe who face oppression and hardship, Isabella is learning to be self-reliant at a young age.
Isabella’s mother fled war-torn South Sudan to shelter in Uganda with her family. But when her husband died, she had to return to her stricken homeland just to earn enough money to provide for her children’s basic needs. She sends money home to Isabella each month, to pay for rent and food, but can only afford to visit her children every two years.
Cheerful Christian Teenager Turned Craft Skills Into Income
Isabella is determined to help her brother and sister survive and have a better future. Through a Barnabas-supported youth training project she learned basic business and craft skills, including shoe-making and baking. The cheerful, hard-working teenager quickly turned her new skills into valuable income with a successful business.
Industrious Isabella Soon Multiplied Her Investment
Business-minded Isabella made a little income from selling beautifully hand-crafted sandals she made with her new skills. “The training in crafts helped me raise capital for starting business,” she explained. She invested the money in setting up a successful cake-making business and quickly grew her investment.
“I plan to raise all the money [we need for food] before school starts. Every holiday, I will be doing business. I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn,” grateful Isabella said, clutching her latest batch of cakes.
Barnabas Is Investing in the Next Generation
Isabella’s story is not an unusual one in regions where Christians are a persecuted and marginalized minority. Around the world, many other Christian children and young people are in need too.
Barnabas is investing in the next generation of believers by providing vocational training to enable young Christians to develop practical skills, including hairdressing, shoe repair, sewing and other crafts that can help them earn a living. In Pakistan we are supporting an apprenticeship project for Christian school graduates to learn trades, enabling them to have a paid vocation such as a plumber, tailor or car mechanic.
Your gift to our Vocational Training Fund will bring new hope to poor and persecuted young Christians, helping them develop the skills to build more resilient lives.
$36 could provide three months of support for a Pakistani Christian apprentice learning a trade
$80 could provide vocational training and a business start-up kit to help lift a young Christian out of crushing poverty in Uganda
$370 could provide six months’ vocational training in hairdressing or sewing for a Christian convert in Senegal
