Immersive poverty experience visits Birmingham this month

Showing life in a developing country.

Birmingham city centre will be visited by the Compassion Experience on 27th–28th April. This 70-foot mobile trailer, created by Christian child development charity Compassion UK, is a great way for both adults and children to experience the sights, sounds and smells of a developing country. This family-friendly experience will give visitors an insight into what life is like for some of the most vulnerable children in the world.

The trailer houses the interactive, tactile, audio and visual stories of Sameson, a boy from Ethiopia, and Shamim, a girl from Uganda. Both Sameson and Shamim grew up experiencing the vulnerability, restrictions, and dangers that poverty brings in their respective cultures and contexts but now are bringers of hope to their own communities.

The Compassion Experience will be in Birmingham city centre on Saturday 27th April and Sunday 28th April 10am–5pm. The event is completely free, and open to members of the public. Booking is not compulsory, but if preferred, advance bookings can be made at: compassionuk.org/experience

Birmingham resident Kirk McAteer comments: “The work of Compassion UK is life-changing for children living in poverty around the world. I was lucky enough to visit some of the child sponsorship projects that Compassion runs for children in Indonesia and Haiti and saw first-hand the huge impact it is having in these children’s lives.

“Following my experience I’m really excited that the Compassion Experience is coming to Birmingham this month, giving people the chance to step into a different world and glimpse how people live, even just for twenty minutes. I’d encourage everyone to visit.”

Compassion UK is an international child development charity with more than sixty years’ experience of working with some of the world’s poorest children. At present nearly 2 million children attend Compassion’s church-based projects in 25 of the world’s poorest countries.

Justin Dowds, CEO of Compassion UK says, “The Compassion Experience brings the developing world to our doorsteps. When people think of poverty, they often think of the lack of material things, but actually, poverty is the lack of freedom to make meaningful choices. Poverty narrows children’s horizons and undermines their ambitions. Through our holistic child development programme, Compassion stirs hope in children. You can witness that hope coming to life through the Compassion Experience.”