'Compassion' Exhibit Coming to Northridge

From a press release:

Compassion International, a leading authority on child sponsorship which releases children from poverty globally, will be bringing its “Change the Story: The Compassion Experience” tour to Northridge on Sept. 12-15.

The event will educate visitors about the realities of life in poverty as well as provide an international experience to visitors who may not ever have the opportunity to travel abroad to a developing country.

The Compassion Experience

The four-day event will be set up in the parking lot of Church Everyday at 17037 Devonshire in Northridge from September 12-15. There, visitors will be invited on a 20-minute, self-guided journey where they will be immersed in the lives and stories of one of three children living in India, Uganda or Bolivia. Each child’s story starts in hardship but ends in hope.

The experience includes 3,100 square feet of exhibit space, featuring replicas of the homes and environments of these three Compassion beneficiaries. The event is free and family-friendly.

“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. “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.”

The Poverty Problem

The tour is highly interactive. Using individual iPods and headsets visitors can hear what life is like in extremely poverty-stricken areas around the world where more than 1.4 billion people are living on less than $1.25 per day (USD). In the areas Compassion serves, one in five children die before the age of five, mostly from preventable causes, and 101 million children worldwide do not attend school. Tour goers will 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, which tackles global poverty one child at a time. Compassion currently serves more than 1.4 million children in 26 of the world’s most impoverished countries.

For more information about “Change the Story: The Compassion Experience,” visit www.compassion.com/change, @ChangeTour on Twitter, and www.facebook.com/changetour on Facebook.