RELOad love
Just a few short years ago the wife of a well-known pastor felt herself lead in a direction to help children impacted by terrorism. She created this idea of melting-down bullets to create charms to add to bracelets and necklaces, and these jewelry pieces could be sold to build playgrounds for children caught in the crossfires of terrorism. Now at the time she had no idea where she was going to find unusable bullets, let alone find children suffering from trauma. Then in 2014 ISIS was controlling more than 34,000 square miles in Syria and Iraq (ISIS Fast Facts par. 6), and there was undoubtedly many children caught up in it all. Lenya Heitzig had her kids that needed help, and later found supporters willing to give unusable bullet casing. Lenya had no idea where reload love would go, but now she sees all that God is doing in her, through this charity. As examining this charity’s purpose, and tools such as their website and playgrounds, Reload Love effectively brings love to children affected by terrorism.
Every child deserves a childhood, and this is what Reload Love hopes to accomplish. All over the world there are kids that are left unrecognized in traumatic events. For instance, over a hundred children were left dislodged as “bodies too many to count remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested is the deadliest massacre in the history of Boko Haram” ( Abdulaziz and Umar par. 1). While the media sees the facts of the event, Reload Love recognizes how many children were affected. It is too often that we sees the devastating event and later move on, but this contradicts Lenya’s view. She seeks out the C.A.N method when dealing with trauma influenced kids. “C” is the first thing that should greet one these kids, and it means calm environment. This can be done by putting an affected child in an environment where they don’t have to worry about anyone else, and they are not surrounded by conflicting events. “A” is the action of acknowledging or recognizing them, and purely trying to see them as they are at the moment, not just someone on a list. “N” is the last stage of getting back to a normal life. That these kids can make a full recovery to a normal childhood is important to Reload Love.
Children deserve a childhood, and Reload Love attempts to bring this back by building playgrounds. Just as Reload Love states, “Experts have discovered that the best way to help children who have been effected by traumatic experiences is to provide them an alternative lifestyle surrounded by a positive environment,” means they are “transforming battlegrounds into playgrounds” (par. 1). By building playgrounds this cause is giving children hope, that not every day has to be hard but there is better brighter future for them. Kids that had no idea what a swing was now get to not only swing on one, but glide down a slide, and climb around on the monkey bars. These playgrounds give these children a reason to smile, and an outlet of fun and laughter. Countries reached so far include Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Iraq, Jordan, Thailand, and Reload Love is currently working on expanding to other countries. These children need this, need to feel true love, and that’s what they receive when people take the time to care.
Every child deserves a childhood, and this is what Reload Love hopes to accomplish. All over the world there are kids that are left unrecognized in traumatic events. For instance, over a hundred children were left dislodged as “bodies too many to count remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested is the deadliest massacre in the history of Boko Haram” ( Abdulaziz and Umar par. 1). While the media sees the facts of the event, Reload Love recognizes how many children were affected. It is too often that we sees the devastating event and later move on, but this contradicts Lenya’s view. She seeks out the C.A.N method when dealing with trauma influenced kids. “C” is the first thing that should greet one these kids, and it means calm environment. This can be done by putting an affected child in an environment where they don’t have to worry about anyone else, and they are not surrounded by conflicting events. “A” is the action of acknowledging or recognizing them, and purely trying to see them as they are at the moment, not just someone on a list. “N” is the last stage of getting back to a normal life. That these kids can make a full recovery to a normal childhood is important to Reload Love.
Children deserve a childhood, and Reload Love attempts to bring this back by building playgrounds. Just as Reload Love states, “Experts have discovered that the best way to help children who have been effected by traumatic experiences is to provide them an alternative lifestyle surrounded by a positive environment,” means they are “transforming battlegrounds into playgrounds” (par. 1). By building playgrounds this cause is giving children hope, that not every day has to be hard but there is better brighter future for them. Kids that had no idea what a swing was now get to not only swing on one, but glide down a slide, and climb around on the monkey bars. These playgrounds give these children a reason to smile, and an outlet of fun and laughter. Countries reached so far include Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Iraq, Jordan, Thailand, and Reload Love is currently working on expanding to other countries. These children need this, need to feel true love, and that’s what they receive when people take the time to care.
Visit reloadlove.com/ for more information on how to get involved or learn more about Reload Love.