A traditional tale relates how a man walking along a beach saw a boy throwing stranded starfish into the waves. When asked why he was doing this, the boy replied that with the ebbing tide, the starfish would die from exposure.

The man pointed out that there were miles and miles of beach and thousands of stranded starfish. What difference could the boy make? The boy bent down and returned another starfish to the ocean. "It makes a difference to this one" he said.

The man looked at the boy inquisitively and thought about what he had said and had done. Inspired, he joined the boy in throwing the starfish back into the ocean.

                                       

The story of the boy and the starfish is core to the ethos and culture of House of Mercy Children’s Home, Lagos (HOM).

Like these starfish, there are more children in desperate need than any one of us could possibly hope to reach. Their numbers are daunting, causing many people to resign themselves to the notion that nothing they can do can have any real impact on a problem of such magnitude.

At HOM, our focus is on touching lives, one child at a time.

We are committed to ensuring that

• one more child eats a nutritious meal,
• one more child has decent clothes and shoes,
• one more child learns to read and write
• one more child facing the dangers of life on the streets has somewhere safe to stay.

It may not significantly affect the problem of global poverty but we know it makes a difference to each child.

Deeply committed to the well-being of children and wanting to make a positive impact on the communities we serve, HOM was established to address the most pressing issues facing Nigerian children today – child hunger, child poverty, child homelessness and child illiteracy. Through our projects, we want the children to understand that they are not just provided for materially but that they are loved, valued and cared for.

No matter how overwhelming the facts and figures are about the pain and misery of children in Nigeria and in the world, we strive to make a difference in our own small way, one child at a time.

Bunmi Awoyinfa

HOM Lagos

Scam Alert

House of Mercy Children’s Home, Lagos (HOM) is actively involved in various charitable activities including outreach to street children, child beggars and child scavengers; provision of free meals and free clothing for needy children; school sponsorship for child beggars and family-based residential homes for girls and boys at risk. Within the limits of available resources, we support children in crisis across Africa. www.homchildrenshome.org
Convention on the Rights of the Child