“An education is perhaps a child’s strongest barrier against poverty.” UNICEF

Hong Kong goods open doors to learning.

Many of the shipments Crossroads sends are to help groups that work to keep children in school. It’s no small feat, in some parts of the world. Almost 1/3 of children in sub-saharan Africa and in many other rural areas of developing nations have never attended any kind of formal school.

We’ve selected just a few images that show how goods donated in Hong Kong and shipped by Crossroads are allowing children around the world to stay in school, learn to read, play and grow! Scroll to the end to see how your school or community group can help, too.

Children like these ones from the Philippines’ Smokey Mountain slum, often spend time with their parents sifting through a massive garbage dump to collect rubbish to sell, and survive. The children pictured, though, now have the chance to play, thanks to a shipment of play equipment and furniture from Crossroads to support their school.

School is serious business for a class of teenagers in Chennai, India. From extremely poor families, they know that studying hard may be their only chance to escape the cycle of poverty they were born into. Their desks were part of one of the many shipments Crossroads has sent to equip the NGO that runs their school!

A major backpack manufacturer donated thousands of brand new, sturdy backpacks to Crossroads. Now some of them are bringing joy to young children in the Gambia, who often have to walk many miles to school, carrying books in their arms.

School for these Kenyan kids used to mean sitting under a tree with their teacher, exposed to the elements, learning what they could with very few materials. Now in a new building, from a local NGO, they are reading their way to a brighter future, thanks to Hong Kong schools who donated boxes and boxes (and boxes!) of books for a Crossroads shipment to equip the school.

Moldovan orphans are among the most deeply vulnerable and disempowered members of their society, at risk of abuse and human trafficking. These ones can’t hide their excitement, though, at a distribution of stationery supplies from a Crossroads shipment, which helped an NGO who works to support and protect Moldovan orphans.

Without the opportunity offered by this non-profit school in Cambodia, many of the orphans and vulnerable children pictured would have no formal education at all. Desks donated to Crossroads by Hong Kong schools are now giving new life to these Cambodian children’s learning!

Your school or group can get involved! Talk to us about running a collection drive of stationery kits, school supplies, educational toys, or raising money to sponsor an educational shipment that can help children in developing nations stay in school.

Email communications@crossroads.org.hk for more information or to discuss collection ideas.