Local students help children their own age in Africa
JACKSON, Tenn. — One organization is inspiring West Tennessee students to get out of their “bubble” and help other kids their age across the world. “We have a very privileged life,” Jackson Christian sophomore Molly Hale said Friday after members from Exile International visited their school Friday morning. “It was very strange to see that our worlds are so much different.” Exile International is an organization committed to saving Africa’s former child soldiers, slaves, and orphans from war. “There are over 250,000 child soldiers in the world, and we know that number is really big,” founder Dr. Bethany Williams said as she spoke with students at Jackson Christian about what they can do to help. “We just look at it like it’s one child at a time.” Students also were able to ask questions about the children helped by their multiple centers in two countries. “Hoping that they get to step outside their Jackson, Tennessee, world and to see what life is like for other children in another part of the world and maybe even inspire them to start thinking about, ‘maybe I can make a difference,'” Matthew Williams with Exile International said. And speaking of high school and middle school kids helping out, the students at Jackson Christian raised $1,100 for Exile International. “Kids in high school or younger, we can still help even though most of the time the society says you can’t, you’re just a kid, there are things that we can do in order to help out,” Jackson Christian sophomore Carson Connell said. And they can help by supporting the program that houses and cares for the children through specialized therapies. “We take so much for granted, and to be able to see them so happy and to be able to draw on a pillow case or a handkerchief just to try and express that emotion that they’ve had to keep inside, that’s something that we all take for granted,” Connell said. For more information on how you can help Exile International, visit the Seen on 7 section of our website.
