Expanding a Vision of Care for Kenyan Children
After years of caring for vulnerable children within a residential setting, Vision Africa, a faith-based organization in Kenya, expanded their vision by adjusting their strategies to support the healthy development of children in families.Vision Africa was founded in 2001 by John and Vera Packard in response [...]
HOPE International: Making a Way to Respond to God’s Call to Care for the Fatherless
In southern Rwanda, Jean Marie and his wife own and operate the only restaurant in their small town. They also have a successful farm producing an abundance of crops. Their newfound financial stability has allowed the couple to support 11 orphans in addition to [...]
Identity Mission: Fostering a Continuum of Family Care Options for Honduran Children
Best practice in caring for orphaned and vulnerable children indicates the need for a continuum of care options for children currently living in—or at risk of being sent to—institutions. While a growing number of ministry leaders, practitioners, and researchers agree that children are best [...]
When a Mother Embraces Hope
Every day in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, there are mothers who rise in the Kore’ slum not knowing what they will feed their children, how they will provide for their basic needs, and if they will find work for the day. This reality [...]
Casa Viva: Family as Sacred Space
For a child, there is no substitute for the lively discussion, the eye contact, the emotional support, and the affection that take place within families. Jill Aspegren, Co-Executive Director of Casa Viva, offers a compelling appeal to care for children who have been separated from [...]
Heaven’s Family: A Story of Donor Transformation
“I’d rather work in the fields of my village with my own family than live in an orphanage,” explained a Burmese girl to Philip Barker, Director of Heaven’s Family UK. She was the very first child Philip met in Myanmar (Burma) eight years ago when [...]
Gatekeeping in Thailand: Reinforcing God’s Design for Family and Protecting Children
Along the Thai-Burma border are communities fraught with poverty and filled with families struggling to survive. The communities mostly comprise people who fled Burma due to decades of violence and oppression. Their children, stateless and without citizenship or official identity, are at high risk of [...]
Potter’s House: Transformation Through Livelihood Strengthening
In the garbage dumps of Guatemala, children are born and raised in an environment that can impede human flourishing. They grow up in the middle of society’s waste, which makes it difficult to see a future beyond the desolation. In this community, family culture encourages [...]
No Ordinary Love Ministries: Reuniting Children and Families in Ethiopia
In 2015, 158 children were reunited with their families through the work of No Ordinary Love Ministries (NOLM). The mission of NOLM is “to bless and serve people living in extreme poverty in Ethiopia, and beyond,” and one of the ways they live this [...]
Supporting the Church Body to Keep Families Together
Working in partnership with local initiatives is an effective response to the needs of orphans and vulnerable children. Preventing family separation, and children being welcomed into new loving, safe, and stable families is what success looks like in this type of work. In communities all [...]
Challenging Heights: Platforms for Children’s Voices to Be Heard
Jesus was quick to say, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them” (Matthew 19:14). His words were countercultural in a time and place when children’s voices were rarely heard; His words continue to provoke our thoughts and actions as we [...]
Pivoting Methods to Create Sustainable Impact: One Woman’s Story of Transition to Family-Based Care
In the local Ugandan dialect, Akola means simply “she works.” Yet, for many Ugandan women and their families, it represents much more. Akola Project began in 2007 with the mission to empower women in poverty to transform the well-being of their families and communities through [...]
Bright Hope: Providing Family Support through Church Partnership
Children grow best in families. This is true whether a child is born into great wealth or extreme poverty. However, in far too many communities around the world, it is poverty that is preventing children from growing up in the care of a family. Poverty [...]
Foster Care India: Redefining India’s Continuum of Care
It is perhaps human nature that we gravitate toward stories with inspiring plots and resolved endings. Those of us tirelessly advocating for vulnerable children love stories of children placed in families happily ever after. In reality, care for orphaned and vulnerable children is typically much [...]
Coptic Orphans: Strengthening the Church Family
Living as a religious minority anywhere in the world can present unique challenges. It can impact daily life, impeding access to education, livelihood opportunities, and economic stability. That is what led Egyptian-born Nermien Riad to found the organization Coptic Orphans. Since its establishment in 1988, [...]