Economic Empowerment

Imagining a Different Story for Sofia and Marta

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment By Nicole Wilke Sofia* was just five years old when her mom left her home unsupervised for the first time. Her dad had left the family and had no contact. Her mom was forced to work long hours at a factory. Until recently, Sofia and her two-year-old sister, Marta*, had spent the hours away from their mom with an elderly neighbor. It wasn’t a perfect arrangement, but they were safe and she let them come for free. When their childcare provider passed away, there were no affordable childcare [...]

Imagining a Different Story for Sofia and Marta2024-01-10T12:39:10-05:00

From Orphanage Volunteer to Family Care Advocate!

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment I’m privileged to have recently joined Faith to Action as the Director of Engagement, eager to step into a critical role of equipping churches, organizations, and individuals with information about the importance of family-based care. As I reflect on all that has prepared me for this role, I’m honored to tell the story of how I began my journey of caring about vulnerable children. In 2006, fresh out of college, feeling called to “do more” and utilize my time and (limited) talent to care for vulnerable children, [...]

From Orphanage Volunteer to Family Care Advocate!2024-01-10T14:09:19-05:00

To Love and to Serve

Tags: Economic Empowerment The long stretch of Kenyan coast is famous for its eye-catching sandy beaches shadowed by swinging palm trees along the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. But the sunny beaches hide the atrocities against children. The socio-cultural practices and tourism sector contribute to rampant child sexual abuse and exploitation in the forms of child marriages and pregnancies, incest and the transactional activities that result in child prostitution and sex tourism. Called to love and serve The late Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Malindi, Rev. Emmanuel Barbara, became aware of these [...]

To Love and to Serve2024-01-10T14:02:19-05:00

Advocacy Efforts Propel Family-Based Care in Kenya

Tags: Foster Care | Transitioning | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Child in Family Focus has been advocating for family-based care in Kenya since its inception in 2012. Cofounder and director Peter Muthui grew up in an orphanage in Nairobi and later worked as a social worker at the same home for ten years. His experiences both as a child living in an orphanage and as a social worker uniquely qualify him to champion the importance of family care for children. With a team of passionate and qualified Kenyans, Child in Family Focus is working [...]

Advocacy Efforts Propel Family-Based Care in Kenya2024-01-10T13:58:59-05:00

Partnering to Find a Family for Every Orphan

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Economic Empowerment A Family for Every Orphan (AFFEO) envisions a world where every child knows the love and stability of a family. To see this vision come to fruition, they partner with and provide support to Christ-centered local organizations around the globe that have developed foster care and adoption programs. Their international partners are strongly vetted to ensure organizational integrity and adherence to best practices. One of AFFEO’s international partners is a locally led faith-based organization (FBO)[i] in Southeast Asia composed of trained social workers, pastors, and a large network [...]

Partnering to Find a Family for Every Orphan2024-01-10T13:57:27-05:00

Expanding a Vision of Care for Kenyan Children

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment 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 to the overwhelming needs of the children they encountered in the community as they administered a children’s home in Nairobi. Initially, they took on the management of two children’s homes from an organization that was unable to continue their administration. John [...]

Expanding a Vision of Care for Kenyan Children2024-01-10T14:26:57-05:00

HOPE International: Making a Way to Respond to God’s Call to Care for the Fatherless

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment 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 their own 5 children. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a young widow named Mama Atiya has a thriving fish business that has granted her financial security, allowing her to adopt 4 orphans from her community into her family and [...]

HOPE International: Making a Way to Respond to God’s Call to Care for the Fatherless2024-01-10T14:22:44-05:00

Identity Mission: Fostering a Continuum of Family Care Options for Honduran Children

Tags: Adoption | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment 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 cared for within families, the question of what type of family placement setting looms large. One child may have living parents with whom they can reunite, while another may have no trace of a family. It is God’s inherent love for every child that [...]

Identity Mission: Fostering a Continuum of Family Care Options for Honduran Children2024-01-10T14:21:42-05:00

Following God’s Lead: My Journey into Family-Based Care

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Journeys in life rarely take a straight path, and my journey into orphan care is no exception. Yet, God promises that if we trust in Him, he will direct our paths (Proverbs 3:5–6). In my case, God’s directing was a U-turn. In 2010, I signed up to go on a short-term mission trip to serve at an orphanage in Zambia. Five years later, I found myself in Uganda empowering local churches to support vulnerable children and their families, advocating for family-based care rather than the use of orphanages. When [...]

Following God’s Lead: My Journey into Family-Based Care2024-01-10T14:14:54-05:00

Casa Viva: Family as Sacred Space

Tags: Economic Empowerment 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 their families: “The time has come for the local church to learn again the ancient art of hospitality—to welcome the guest in the name of Christ. Children know when they have entered the home of a real family—the threshold is a sacred space.” Prior to Casa Viva, Jill and [...]

Casa Viva: Family as Sacred Space2024-01-10T23:45:52-05:00

Gatekeeping in Thailand: Reinforcing God’s Design for Family and Protecting Children

Tags: Economic Empowerment 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 exploitation, chronic poverty, abuse, and human trafficking. Yet, in the midst of this brokenness is a group of people who, choosing to follow Christ’s example, enter into their neighbors’ suffering and work to bring about restoration and hope. This group is the community outreach team of Global [...]

Gatekeeping in Thailand: Reinforcing God’s Design for Family and Protecting Children2024-01-17T17:18:48-05:00

Potter’s House: Transformation Through Livelihood Strengthening

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment 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 partnering and starting a family of their own when they reach adolescence, with many children leaving formal education behind by age 12. It is not uncommon for 14-year-olds to begin living with a girlfriend or boyfriend; marriage rituals are rarely celebrated and it is the general [...]

Potter’s House: Transformation Through Livelihood Strengthening2024-01-17T17:16:37-05:00

No Ordinary Love Ministries: Reuniting Children and Families in Ethiopia

Tags: Economic Empowerment 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 out is through reuniting separated children with their families. One such family is that of a young girl named Tesfanesh. Wanting to help support her parents, she agreed to travel from her village to the capital to find employment. After only a week in Addis Ababa, Tesfanesh ran away, unable [...]

No Ordinary Love Ministries: Reuniting Children and Families in Ethiopia2024-01-17T17:16:43-05:00

Supporting the Church Body to Keep Families Together

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment 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 around the world, church partnerships play a vital role in upholding the importance of family and supporting care of orphans and vulnerable children. An organization doing such critical work is World Orphans. The US-based nonprofit works to empower the church to care for orphans by partnering [...]

Supporting the Church Body to Keep Families Together2024-01-17T17:14:56-05:00

Pivoting Methods to Create Sustainable Impact: One Woman’s Story of Transition to Family-Based Care

Tags: Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment 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 economic development. Since its start, Akola has helped create economic stability for 400 women and over 3,000 dependents in their care. This impact is possible because of a young woman’s willingness to pivot her method of achieving her calling. In 2004, Brittany Merrill Underwood, [...]

Pivoting Methods to Create Sustainable Impact: One Woman’s Story of Transition to Family-Based Care2024-03-11T11:37:59-04:00

A Place to Call Home, A Person(s) to Call Family

Tags: Economic Empowerment Millions of children in Africa are growing up in orphanages, residential care centers, and children’s homes. Most of these institutions identify themselves as “homes” and “family” to these children. But are these residential care institutions really “home” or “family”? I grew up in an institution, and it didn’t feel like a family and I didn’t have the feeling that I was home. On the contrary, the place gave me a feeling of emptiness, uncertainty, and confusion. My two siblings (younger sister and older brother) were taken to a hospital, then to an [...]

A Place to Call Home, A Person(s) to Call Family2024-01-17T17:32:08-05:00

Foster Care India: Redefining India’s Continuum of Care

Tags: Foster Care | Economic Empowerment 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 more complex than a singular solution. As the Faith to Action Initiative explains in the document A Continuum of Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, “Preventing unnecessary separation, strengthening family care, and reducing placement in orphanages requires the existence of a ‘continuum’ of approaches [...]

Foster Care India: Redefining India’s Continuum of Care2024-01-17T17:29:36-05:00

Family First: A Global Partnership Between Roblealto and Bethany Community Church

Tags:  Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment Roblealto Child Care Association puts families at the forefront of its work with vulnerable children in San Jose, Costa Rica. Roblealto supports a holistic approach to restore at-risk children to loving and supportive relationships with their parents and provides resources for parents to achieve self-sufficiency for their families. Roblealto’s programs include four child care centers throughout San Jose, group homes, and a youth alumni group to support and empower youth leaving their programs. Child care centers seek to prevent separation of children from their families and strengthen family support [...]

Family First: A Global Partnership Between Roblealto and Bethany Community Church2024-01-17T17:28:29-05:00

One Step at a Time Toward a World Without Orphans

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Economic Empowerment A World Without Orphans—it’s a huge dream that lives in the hearts of thousands of people who believe that every orphan should live in a loving family and work toward this great goal daily. I sincerely believe in it too. And I know that the church is capable of solving this problem through welcoming the fatherless and motherless into their homes and working with crisis families. Although the idea of a church caring for every orphan (we like to call it one church, one child) is simple [...]

One Step at a Time Toward a World Without Orphans2024-01-17T17:25:05-05:00

Putting the Lonely in Families: The Journey of SFAC

Tags: Foster Care | Economic Empowerment The transformation of a child who is reintegrated into a family is always worthy of praise and thanksgiving. Yet few things are as noteworthy as the hundreds of children’s lives impacted by an adult or adults who decisively recognize that God puts the lonely in families (Psalm 68:6). Meet Mick Pease. Mick is the Director of SFAC (Substitute Families for Abandoned Children), a UK-based Christian organization that advocates for improved services for orphaned and abandoned children, with an emphasis on alternative options to residential care. SFAC provides training for [...]

Putting the Lonely in Families: The Journey of SFAC2024-01-17T18:06:59-05:00
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