What we do

Across the Asia-Pacific hundreds of millions of children are vulnerable. Poverty, war and conflict, HIV-AIDS, and natural and man-made disasters affect both urban and rural populations. Children often pay the highest price.

World Vision’s heart is for children and for the communities in which they grow up. If children are to be better cared for and to have brighter futures then individuals, families and communities need to experience a transformation that increases their opportunities, gives them the power to improve their own lives and that allows the world’s wealthiest to partner with the world’s poorest - not just give handouts.

More than that, at times when disasters strike and overwhelm communities and countries - like the December 26 2004 Asian Tsunami - World Vision also responds to help survivors rebuild their lives.

Working with children and their communities

A key feature of World Vision’s work is community development. Thanks to the sponsorship of over a million children in the Asia-Pacific region we are able to fund development activities in hundreds of Area Development Programmes and projects across the region. These areas are where World Vision-sponsored children live. They have been identified as especially poor village clusters or urban communities with populations of up to 250,000 people.

In a step-by-step process local leaders first partner with World Vision to identify what keeps people in poverty. It could be any number of things: the dry wells; poor education; the exorbitant interest rates charged by loan sharks; the annual monsoon flooding; or HIV-AIDS. World Vision then works with communities to tackle these issues, supporting with funding, skills and encouragement in ways that are appropriate and that give people responsibility for their futures and their dignity. In this way the community itself retains ownership of the development process. The community decides what its development priorities are and works alongside World Vision to achieve its goals.

Ensuring that sponsored - and non-sponsored children - go to school is a key component of World Vision’s work.

But World Vision might also partner to provide micro-credit, improve agriculture and infrastructure, educate pregnant mothers about nutrition and health, provide evening classes for adults or any number of other activities.

These Area Development Programmes impact many millions of people in the Asia-Pacific. After 10-15 years they are phased out - allowing the community to continue the journey towards beating poverty.

Read more: Working for children across the Asia-Pacific

Children at risk

Some children are particularly vulnerable and require special support to escape life on the street, bonded labour, abusive homes, a prison past, the clutch of traffickers and child abusers.

Other children are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS and have lost parents and loved ones, facing a frightening future on their own. World Vision provides a range of assistance, including care homes and drop-in centres, trauma counseling, emotional support, skills training and education.

Responding to disasters

The Asia-Pacific region is extremely prone to disasters. Droughts, typhoons, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods and mudslides all wreak havoc, especially on the lives of the poor. On top of this there are numerous man-made humanitarian crises and conflicts. Civil war, religious, ideological and ethnic tensions, environmental destruction also affect communities resulting in fear, displacement, and loss of life and homes.

In recent years World Vision has responded to the devastating Asian tsunami, floods in China, India, Thailand and Bangladesh, civil conflict in East Timor, ethnic violence in Indonesia and the Philippines, the South Asian quake, drought in Sri Lanka, food shortages in North Korea, and the Gujarat earthquake.

World Vision is well placed to respond to major disasters. A Global Rapid Response Team of relief experts is available to handle the largest. The region also has trained staff ready to respond to local disasters. Pre-positioned aid can be flown in at short notice.

One third of World Vision’s Asia-Pacific programmes are in disaster prone areas so community development staff work hard to prevent disasters from happening or mitigate against their worst affects.

Changing Our World

If the world is to be changed then the poor and children need to have a voice - and have it heard - and they need to find their own solutions to the challenges they face. World Vision works to have the voices of those we partner with heard at the highest levels of government and at the UN, as well as at the village and urban community level. Together we speak out on issues such as child labour, debt relief for poor nations, and the use of children as combatants in armed conflict.