Photo courtesy of Compassion International.
Compassion Experience
Children tour The Compassion Experience and listen to the story of a child who once lived in extreme poverty.
More than 3,000 people went on a self-guided tour of The Compassion Experience at the Church at Brook Hills in January.
The 1,700-square-foot hands-on poverty exhibit, which is housed in portable tractor trailers, was stationed in the church parking lot Jan. 8-11.
Visitors young and old walked through life-size replicas of the homes and environments of two children who once lived in extreme poverty.
The exhibit is organized by Compassion International, a child sponsorship organization whose goal is to release children from poverty globally via a multi-tiered approach. Attendees walk through several rooms in the exhibit, designed to look like a child’s house, place of employment and hometown. Visitors are given headphones and an iPod that they carry through the exhibit, guiding them from room to room. The voice of a child narrates their story, beginning in poverty and ending in hope thanks to the help they received from Compassion International.
“We built ‘The Compassion Experience’ in order to really bring the developing world to America,” said Mark Hanlon, Compassion International’s senior vice president of global marketing and engagement, in a news release. “When people think of poverty, they often think of the lack of things, the lack of stuff, the lack of money. Those are all symptoms of poverty. The real issue of poverty is the lack of hope. Through our holistic child development program, Compassion stirs hope in children. And you’ll see that hope come to life at this event.”
Tour goers have the opportunity to “change the story” of children living in poverty by learning more about the issue, as well as Compassion’s child sponsorship program. Compassion currently serves more than 1.7 million children in 26 of the world’s most impoverished countries, according to the release.
For more information about The Compassion Experience, visit CompassionExperience.com.
