|PIC1|Explaining what it is like to subsist in a shanty proves difficult for the vulnerable like three-year-old boy Richmon. Improvised shelters are usually made of scrap material and lack sanitation facilities. Hunger and disease are rampant. This shanty existence is the desperate plight faced by the very poorest of more than 23 million people living below the poverty threshold Philippines.

Abandoned by his mother at birth, Richmon was neglected by distant relatives in the shanty area of the Philippines where they lived. When a Siloam Christian Ministries project was alerted to his plight, helpers found him alone, starving and eating his excrement. He suffered from worms and severe malnutrition with a swollen abdomen.

Rehoboth Children's Rescue Centre, the Siloam supported project, took Richmon into care when he weighed a mere 3 kilos. He received de-worming treatment and was put on an enriched diet to help him gain weight. Today he is a healthy child, weighing 10 kilos.

Significantly, Richmon now is cared for by a dedicated team who help children make the complete transition needed to live normal, happy lives. They provide the loving supportiveness to nurture vulnerable children.

Manager Fe Cantas explains, "Daily activities of children play a big part of their growth and development. For them to develop holistically we are teaching them manual skills, to participate as part of a group and experience pleasure in working for the good of all.

"Then too, we teach them how to express themselves and help them develop their intellectual ability by acquiring basic skills relative to later learning: matching, sorting, classifying and sequencing."

Although this loving environment is provided for children for as long as they need it, the centre aims to select adoptive families who can ensure each child of the best possible future. They work together with authorities to place children with adoptive parents around the world. For children like Richmon, this hopeful prospect is a world away from the downward spiral of a shanty existence.

On the web: www.siloam.org.uk