The child in the pond

Max visits Sara, a sixteen-year-old boy, and his mother. Sara cannot walk due to brain damage, and he too was excluded in his village. But thanks to the support he received through Samuel’s organization, his situation has improved dramatically and the future now looks hopeful. He attends school and dreams of becoming an electrician. His mother has even become an activist for the rights of children...

Max is traveling with Samuel and Koroma to the village of Alhaji, a ten-year-old boy. His father has died and his mother has left him. Only his grandmother still takes care of him. But she is old and fragile. She says, quite literally: “If I die, Alhaji dies.” Is there no one who can care for him? And what can Samuel’s organization do for children like Alhaji? Step by step, Max unravels the comple...

In  The Child in the Pond , journalist and philosopher Max Boogaard travels to Sierra Leone on behalf of Liliane Fonds. Together with a team of local aid workers, he visits children with disabilities who are hidden from the outside world. Communities often believe these children are possessed. In this episode, Max visits Annabel and her mother Ramatu. They live in a damp, unfinished house in...

Imagine this: you’re walking past a pond and you see a child drowning. What would you do? Max believes he would jump into the water without hesitation to save the child. But what if a child in mortal danger is on the other side of the world, far away from you? Why do we usually do nothing then? In  The child in the pond , journalist and podcast maker Max Boogaard (26) travels on behalf of Lil...