Jason is hurriedly finishing his breakfast. Strapped to his back is a brand new metallic blue backpack with a large Spiderman print. ‘He enjoys school these days’, says Sandra, his grandmother, an out-of-work custodian of Jason. His mother died due to a drug overdose two years ago. ‘The trauma has vanished. He’s not the same’, she beams, all thanks to the thoughtful initiative – A Precious Child – the Denver-based NGO that’s going straight and undistracted for the bull’s-eye – Empowering kids to succeed.
Jason and thousands of kids like him are back to feeling normal, accepted, and at home, after going through the paralysis of poverty. Children are to society what light is to the Sun. A traumatized child is the reflection of a traumatized society, and this is also true the other way round. To address the problem, Carina Martin founded the A Precious Child initiative in 2008 in her garage. Today, the NGO runs 10 effective programs that provide embracive care to meet the critical needs of a child – organizing a free supply of diapers, school kits, clothes, toys, family holiday vouchers during the holidays, and emergency essentials during a pandemic breakout like the recent Covid episode.
How does this initiative work and how do they connect with the needy? A Precious Child has built a strong network of over 500 agency partners – other NGOs, schools, shelter homes, fire and police departments, churches, and so on. The Agency partners identify families in need and connect them with the A Precious Child programs. The agency partner network is expanding with more and more community centers joining in in this glorious cause.
The brilliance of the A Precious Child initiative is multi-pronged.
To start with, The NGO’s determination to fix what needs to be fixed immediately- freeing a child from the prisons of lack – in one clean sweep, breaks the cycle of poverty by reducing socioeconomic inequalities through their Economic Mobility Initiatives, which include: Child and Family Advocacy, Family Stability, Academic Success, Social and Emotional Well-Being and Workforce Development
Secondly, the initiative makes the whole thing a shared responsibility. Individuals, celebrities, businesses, and civic bodies all are joint stakeholders in this program. When everybody is invited to chip-in, the burden of individual contribution is greatly reduced.
Finally, it reveals the truth that it takes little to experience and spread happiness. It’s just a fifty-dollar backpack. But it for sure has turned Jason’s life around.