But we live in a broken world in which circumstances, insufficient support and choices can twist that dream into a nightmare. The finest seed cannot thrive when planted in bad soil and deprived of the water and light it needs to grow. The same is true for children and youth who find themselves in difficult circumstances. Poverty, trauma and lack of a safe home environment are some of the challenges facing our future generations and threatening the actualisation of the dream on a personal and societal level.  

We are called to be the hands that tend and support those seeds, to anchor their roots into a firm God-centred foundation, and to provide them with the water, sunlight and pruning that will help them grow to their full potential and thrive.

We seek to understand the dream God has for each person in our care and to build a bond with them beyond simply supplying their material needs. No two people are alike, and the characteristics of each dream and its parallel nightmare are thus something we can only understand by first building a relationship. From there we are able to develop a plan uniquely tailored to the individual in their context, enabling us to guide them towards the dream and steer them away from the nightmare. The plant which emerges from such a process has the potential to be a resilient and formidable member of society whose fragrance, fruit and shade can strengthen the community.

We are driven by this desire, to see those in our care embrace and fulfil the dream: the ideal state which God intended for them.

How then do we work towards realising this dream and restraining the nightmare?

Read more about our Social Change Theory in Part 2: The Dance!