Compassion International employees often find themselves drawn into vulnerable and intimate family moments as they work to improve the lives of children in places like Colombia, East India, and Tanzania. Using snapshots taken by its workers, the organization recently compiled a photo essay showing where the young people it serves lay their heads each night.

The bedrooms — in huts, shacks, rough concrete structures, sometimes just a mattress atop a stone or dirt floor — can shelter siblings or even entire families. Yet the images burst with warmth, color, and the children’s expressions of pride and gratitude for having a place to sleep.

The photo essay has been shared more than 18,000 times on social media since it was posted on Compassion International’s blog in March, the organization says.

The charity has racked up significant increases in private support every year since 1999, according to The Chronicle’s Philanthropy 400. The nonprofit stood at No. 24 in this year’s rankings, thanks to a 7 percent jump in support, to $765 million.

While many of the families the group serves live in poverty, Compassion International’s visual storytelling relies heavily on positive imagery to bring donors closer to the children their gifts benefit.

Below, some of the images from Compassion International’s photo essay.

A Place to Lay Their Heads 1
Nuda Klogdaranee, 14, lives in a boarding house in a village in Thailand. She shares the dormitory with about 60 other girls and sleeps under a mosquito net with two friends.

A Place to Lay Their Heads 2
Loraine Pastrana, 17, who lost her leg to an infection at age 12, studies for a career in medical billing in her native Colombia.

ADVERTISEMENT

A Place to Lay Their Heads 3
Joseph Ahimbisibwe, 15, aspires to be a teacher. He and his sister are being raised by their grandparents in Uganda; their parents left to find land to farm.

A Place to Lay Their Heads 4
Jesus David Flores Martinez, 4, whose mother died soon after his birth, lives with his aunt in a household of 12 people in Colombia.

A Place to Lay Their Heads 5
Hazel Guadalupe Lopez Flores, 8, is the baby of a family of eight in Nicaragua. Her mother, Nubia Florez Ortiz, says Hazel loves to study and hopes to go to college.