RW Supply + Design’s mission is that we exist UNTIL EVERY CHILD IS HOME. Imagine that you live in a small shack in a landfill in Southeast Asia. You have lost your job and your spouse left. You cannot read or write, because you never received an education. Each morning you wake up and go into the landfill to locate tiny plastic bottles to sell to support your four children. However, lack of a support system means that you are forced to bring your children to work with you…12 or 14 hours a day in the smoke and heat. The goal of each day is to gain just enough money to buy food. This is your story, day after day.
But, one day something unexpected occurs and you are no longer able to feed your children. They become hungry and sick, making it more and more difficult to earn even that meager amount of money. Perhaps you have heard that in a neighboring city there is a children’s home (orphanage) that offers food and safety. You are then faced with a horrible decision. Should you keep your children or take them to a place where they can at least eat? Before you know it, you have signed the papers relinquishing them to a government orphanage that will never allow you to see them again…even if you do find an escape for yourself.
Poverty is THE common theme in childhood abandonment…lack of finances, inadequate housing, inability to access education, minimal support, no medical care..the list goes on and on. It is a complicated problem, because it leads to a sense of hopelessness. That hopeless can carry on from one generation to the next…forming generational patterns. Even good intentions can do nothing…or even make things worse.
Our goal is to make certain that our efforts do not unintentionally tear families apart. Family preservation is best for families and the most effective way to make sure that every child is home. While this is our newest area of focus, we believe it is foundational to making certain every child is home.The ability to work until the day that every child is home, is solely because of the work that you do each day!
(Photos from Love Without Boundaries work in the landfills of Cambodia)
