Like children everywhere, Rohingya children in a Bangladesh refugee camp find joy playing together. Of the nearly 1 million refugees living in the camps, 55% are children. Despite difficult conditions, they can come together daily at World Vision’s Child-Friendly Spaces to have fun and learn. (©2019 World Vision/photo by Jon Warren)

Every day of the year, World Vision works around the world to meet the needs of refugees. On June 20, World Refugee Day, we highlight the plight of the 68.5 million people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes and the innovative ways we help them cope. Running from violence in Syria, Myanmar, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Venezuela, and other countries, refugees seek a new life of safety. More than half of the world’s refugees are children. 

Since August 2017, about 700,000 people from the Rohingya ethnic group have fled Myanmar and joined 200,000 Rohingya already taking refuge in Bangladesh, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Through its response to the crisis, World Vision is investing in a better life today and a better future for Myanmar’s refugees, especially children.

Meet Bilkis, a 38-year-old mom in Bangladesh and her teenage daughter Sadia. Those smiles were rare three years ago when they were both working in a shrimp factory just trying to survive. Before World Vision started working in their community, they had no hope.  But today, they can see a brighter future. 

Previous Mukombwe, 40, is a blissful and high-spirited mother of eight beautiful children, four boys and four girls. She is married to Airman, 46, who is a peasant farmer. Growing up in a poor, remote village, Previous was forced to drop out of school and be married at the age of 17. “I didn’t want to get married but had no choice,” she says.

Despite being married to a very caring man, things didn’t go as planned in the first years of their marriage. “I tried so hard to get pregnant but failed.

“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” 1 Peter 5:10

In November 2018 I had the opportunity to see World Vision’s Child Protection work in Bangladesh & India. For the past couple of months, I’ve been leaning heavily into this verse. How do I even begin to share about a trip, that was amazing, intense, beautiful, heartbreaking, joyful, made me angry at times and hopeful in others, and one that pretty much put me through a wringer of emotions? I jumped off the deep end with this one!

Dominica leads her students in a lesson on social studies.

Dominica Chelatan (24) displays a rare trait, she has a photographic memory of her childhood. Her recollection of her upbringing speaks to the survival tactics she developed, living in a culture that had little regard for a girl child.

She was born into a large traditional Pokot family of twenty children. Her father was a village elder who was respected in the community. His words were like commands and nobody dared to disobey him. The sad thing is, he had no regard for education.

In Bangladesh, Shohug’s father died when he was 5, leaving him to help provide for his family. Through World Vision, Shohug, 10, can still go to school, even while he helps his mom sell homemade lentil chips. Please join us in prayer for children like Shohug. (©2017 World Vision/photo by Laura Reinhardt)

Children are a precious gift from God. As adults, we have the privilege and responsibility to care for them and help them live the full and abundant life God desires for them. Tragically, love and security are not the reality for three-quarters of the world’s children who experience some form of violence every year.

It is hard to accept, but the reality for the majority of children is a life of violence, and for some, exploitation. At least 1.7 billion of the 2.2 billion children in the world experience violence every year, in their homes, schools, or communities.