Everywhere in the world, we can observe and be touched by acts of kindness. People from all walks of life, faiths, and cultures extend themselves beyond the call of duty to help others unconditionally. Through their noble deeds, humanity as a whole is elevated.

To commend virtuous actions and encourage more people to be inspired by their examples, Supreme Master Ching Hai has lovingly created a series of awards, including the Shining World Leadership Award, Shining World Compassion Award, Shining World Hero and Heroine Awards, Shining World Honesty Award, Shining World Protection Award, Shining World Intelligence Award, and Shining World Inventor Award, to recognize some of the most exemplary, Generous, caring, and courageous people who walk amongst us.

Caring for Kaela is an international organization working to empower children’s lives in Chad so they can reach their full God-given potential. Founded in 2004 by Belgian citizen Ms. Nathalie Losson, the non-profit was named after her Chadian God-daughter Kaela, and is inspired by the spiritual message of transforming compassion into constructive action. Kaela is every child, often victims of war, abuse, or crime. Helping them goes hand in hand with boosting their communities, and even the country, to rise out of poverty.

Caring for Kaela came out of the church. I was inspired by my pastor who always used to say, “Don’t sit if you know you need to be standing. And don’t stand if you know you need to be walking.” And for him, he was calling the lost to Christ. But he was also calling Christians to action. And this organization was created to take people’s compassion and put that into action.

Oftentimes we see on television, visions of horror, poverty, famine, and something tugs at us but oftentimes we move on to the next thing. And so we wanted to take this compassion that people felt and really try to harness that to have an impact in Chad, where we work.

The approach used by Caring for Kaela is holistic: It not only works with the child but also focuses on the environment around the child. It offers youngsters the security of a home, while assisting them to acquire the skills necessary to grow into independent adults.

Chadian children are in a context that is extremely poor. Chad is one of the poorest countries in Africa, if not the world. Children are subject of child trafficking, because of the ongoing conflict they’re often recruited as child soldiers. Poverty often drives children to leave their home and try to find a way to make money on their own. But oftentimes, this doesn’t work and children find themselves either addicted to drugs or homeless and with nowhere else to turn. So there’s great need for these children.

How can people help them?

We link somebody here in the US with a child in Chad, where the person can help support this child’s education through our local partner, the Bethesda Center. And the Bethesda Center is a psychosocial rehabilitation center that looks for children in the streets, tries to identify a family and helps to cater to the child in a holistic way. So taking care of its social needs, its spiritual needs, its educational needs, its health needs. And so the sponsors would be able help assist with one child’s education in life.

The Bethesda Center works with Caring for Kaela by teaching youngsters conflict resolution skills and providing health services and job training. Ms. Losson is currently working to secure a safe residential facility for the children to stay in until a family is able to take them in. Yet another project of the group is a micro-credit service.

A lot of people said, “You can’t give money to street children. They will disappear with it.” And so, we tried a couple of youth that were recommended to us and it was amazing. They had a start-up fund to build. One of them wanted to sell candy. And so he had been trained as a carpenter and he built himself this table with drawers and things to clothe and it was just this amazing thing that he built and ended up selling throughout the summer enough money to pay the entire credit back.

The other person wanted to sell leggings and shirts, and so he ended up making some money and being able to repay the whole credit back. It was a very successful experience that we hope to continue.

Amazingly, Caring for Kaela is an all-volunteer organization in which the helpers perform a variety of tasks such as teaching, event-coordination, fund-raising, and so on. They work closely with an advisory committee of native Chadians who help to prioritize the goals.

We selected five Chadians from the diaspora who had a vision for their country and knew that the Chad could do better than what it was doing. We were able to provide them with a platform so that they could interact with the US Administration, with the United Nations, with the European Union, with stakeholders around the world.

And it wasn’t so much that Caring for Kaela provided any training or technical expertise but we allowed them to harness the power and the capacity that was in them to be able to affect, and engage in, the governance of their country. And so through that, we were able to affect the peace process in Chad, and in a small way maybe render Chad a little better than it was.

Remarkably, Caring for Kaela has made solid initiatives at four levels: individual, community, national, and international.

At the individual level, we have our local partner, the Bethesda Center, that does education to employment, to make sure that the children receive an education that eventually leads to their ability to sustain themselves financially independently. At the community level, we work to reinforce the capacity of the local community.

And so we’ve worked with youth; at times we’ve worked with a radio station. We’ve worked with civil society, the youth project with the “Wakith Tamma” (It Is Time) project that engage young people in the development of their country, and really taught through that newspaper, non-violent conflict methods.

Because at that time so many youth were drawn by the rebellion, it was necessary to provide another choice, and to say that dialogue can work. Nationally, we’ve worked very much on peace-building. Now it’s changed to a phase of reconstruction because we’re at the end of a cycle of violence. And internationally, Caring for Kaela does advocacy.

We lead a Chad working group of 30 some NGOs, where we harmonize the advocacy strategies for the US government and then UN. And then we collaborate with EU Non-governmental organizations who advocate in Brussels with the European Union. So, the vision to be able to impact the total environment so that child can blossom, and then reinvest what it has learned into the development of his own community.

Indeed, the vision of Caring for Kaela is far-reaching in time and in distance.

So how can we achieve sustainable peace in Chad?

Chad is at a very critical time in its history. We’re at the end of a cycle of violence, and it is an opportunity right now for the government to be able to eradicate injustice and provide equality to all its citizens, to really unite a people that has since now been divided.

The international community has a role to play, too. This is not the time to abandon Chad. This is a time for donors to invest in this country, to invest in the education system, in the health system. Now we have several good years where really donors need to be investing and rebuild this country. Chadians themselves have to be willing to create this nation together, and that’s going to be a challenge for them.

Chadians are extremely generous and hospitable. You don’t need much to be able to make it in Chad for a long time. They will open their homes and their heart to you and provide you with everything that you need. Their generosity is really something that we could learn from.

What have you learned by doing this work? I mean, how has it impacted your life?

What has marked me the most is just the ability of individuals to effect change. We are all volunteers with very few resources and even Chadians that worked with us gave of their time and their finances and took off from work. And we had meetings here, and meetings there. It was tremendously touching to see people sacrifice for a greater vision, just to see that 11 million Chadians could have a better future.

That’s amazing. (It is.) So do you have a message for our worldwide audience that you’d like to share?

Certainly. I would like to say that never underestimate the power of the individual to make a change in this world. Turn your compassion to action. Act. Do something in your local community, in your school, it doesn’t have to be far away. But we are all responsible for the world we leave our children. And so each of us has been given so much, we’re expected to give that back.

For Ms. Losson’s dedicated love in action for the Chadian youth, Supreme Master Ching Hai has honored her with the Shining World Compassion Award, along with a donation of US$10,000 to further the noble work.

“…For building the foundation of new harmony, wellbeing and social development in Chad, for advocating equality and justice, for your benevolence and kindness, and for being a dedicated and a noble role-model, we hereby applaud and celebrate the compassionate deeds of Caring for Kaela staff and volunteers, and with special thanks to founder Miss Nathalie Losson. With Great Honour, Love and Blessings, Supreme Master Ching Hai”

Ms. Losson expressed her thankfulness for the award and contribution of US$10,000 from Supreme Master Ching Hai.

Dear Supreme Master Ching Hai, I’m just so touched and grateful for your donation. This is such a… This is… It’s difficult to put in a word what this means for us. Your dedication, your vision for peace on Earth is something that we share. And we hope that with these funds we can join and empower and share your message that you have shared throughout the world. And you have, with this support that you’ve given us, touched one more heart, and for that I thank you.

Later, Ms. Losson wrote a thank you letter to Supreme Master Ching Hai, the following of which is an excerpt:

“Supreme Master Ching Hai, Please allow me to express my most sincere and heartfelt gratitude for receiving the “Shining World Compassion Award.” It is truly an honor to be acknowledged. Your generous $10,000 donation will used by Caring for Kaela to share in your vision of building a more peaceful Earth where people of all walks of life can live in harmony with each other and nature…

Your dedication to humanity and your commitment to peace are an example for many to follow. Thank you wholeheartedly for your support. Nathalie Losson Executive Director”

Thank you, Ms. Nathalie Losson for being the bright light of shelter, love and protection for this and future generations of children in Chad. May your work be blessed evermore to expand in assisting countless youth and communities to realize their great potential, and for a nation to further peace in our world. For more information about Caring for Kaela, please visit

Gracious viewers, thank you for your company on this program. Coming up next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television. May we all be blessed by the daily sharing of kindness and tolerance.