Can you help? Saffron has spent her past 12 years living in care, but is about to start living independently and she needs a hand.

“This is partly an exciting moment but also a bit scary. I will be renting a small flat in the coming months and my wish for Christmas is to have a voucher for home items that i can use when I start renting,” the 17-year-old writes.

Hers is just one of 1,741 dreams already listed on the Children’s Dreams website and over a fifth of them have already come true.

Although the majority of the requests are for toys, there are other wishes that tug at the heartstrings. Fourteen-year-old Mathilde, for example, said that she did very well in the last scholastic year thanks to private lessons.

“I wish to continue to attend private lessons in physics to improve my knowledge. But I know that my mother will find it difficult to continue to pay for the lessons,” she said.

Nigel, 15, made a similar plea for art supplies, saying that “these were very expensive” since the family was surviving off her mother’s part-time work.

Sometimes the wish was simple but the plea that came with it was profoundly moving. Kenneth, 11, asked for wireless bluetooth headphones.

“My dad has been ill for quite sometime now. My mum used to work to make ends meet but this year she had to stop working so that she could take care of my father at home. It is nice that I have my mum at home with us now but I know that it is difficult for them financially. I love to watch documentaries on my tablet and thus headphones are something I would really love to have.”

Gifts are collected by the Foundation for Social Welfare Services and passed on to the children’s carers to be handed out on Christmas Day.

www.childrendreams.org

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