Transitioning Archives - Faith to Action

Shifting Mission Trips to Collaborative Learning

Tags: Community Strengthening, Transitioning For 16 years, every July, Helping Children Worldwide sent teams of volunteer American teachers to teach summer school in an orphanage in Sierra Leone. They provided reading, writing, and mathematical enrichment instruction, believing it would improve children’s performance in Sierra Leonean schools. It was a popular project, and U.S. teachers continued to apply and travel every year, as the teachers loved the time they spent teaching the children and interacting with them. However, in 2016, leadership at Helping Children Worldwide and the orphanage, called the Child Rescue Centre, had an epiphany [...]

Shifting Mission Trips to Collaborative LearningAllison Coble2024-10-21T11:06:20-04:00

Houston Church Supports Families in Guatemala

Tags: Community Strengthening, Transitioning Guest post by Toni Steere, Director of Legacy 68:5 at Houston's First Baptist Church For Houston’s First Baptist Church, the journey to supporting family-based care for orphaned and vulnerable children began with a simple conversation. Legacy 68:5, the adoptive, foster, kinship and orphan care ministry of Houston’s First Baptist Church is committed to providing a supportive community and financial resources for local families pursuing adoption, foster care, or kinship care as well as entities serving the vulnerable globally. Over the last 15 years Legacy 68:5 has been on a wild learning [...]

Houston Church Supports Families in GuatemalaAllison Coble2024-01-10T12:58:14-05:00

How Faith and Perseverance Led to Foster Care in Mexico

Tags: Foster Care | Transitioning Lola* was just five months old when she first came to the orphanage in Chihuahua City, Mexico. At a time when most babies are cooing and giggling from affectionate games of peek-a-boo, Lola was already emotionally and psychologically scarred, struggling from the effects of extreme neglect. Over the next three years, there was little change for Lola, as the stable relationships she needed for healthy development were not met in an institutional setting. Simply put, Lola was suffering from the lack of a family. At 4 years old, Lola was finally [...]

How Faith and Perseverance Led to Foster Care in MexicoAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:04:35-05:00

YWAM Challenges Missions Goers to “Love Wisely”

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening Every year, around 1500 individuals from all over the world descend on Youth With a Mission’s biggest training base located in Kona, Hawaii. Youth With a Mission, or YWAM (pronounced “why wam”) as it is commonly called, is an international volunteer missions movement and one of the biggest short-term missions-sending organizations in the world. In 2017, a small group of YWAM volunteers came across ACCI’s KINNECTED resources regarding best practices in supporting vulnerable children during short-term missions. They learned research shows the majority of children in orphanages are not actually orphans, [...]

YWAM Challenges Missions Goers to “Love Wisely”Allison Coble2024-01-10T13:12:11-05:00

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!Allison Coble2024-01-10T14:09:19-05:00

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 KenyaAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:58:59-05:00

Better Together for Children and Families in Uganda

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening The crested crane is a symbol of pride in Uganda. It is both the national bird and the name of Uganda’s most popular sports team—the Uganda Cranes. There is, however, another organization with a national reach utilizing this symbol. CRANE, also known as the Children at Risk Action Network, is an organization based in Kampala, Uganda that utilizes the strength of networks to catalyze best practices in working with vulnerable children and families. CRANE consists of 134 churches, schools, and faith-based organizations (FBOs) that span the entire country. Members of CRANE [...]

Better Together for Children and Families in UgandaAllison Coble2024-01-10T13:35:18-05:00

The Pathway Home

Tags: Transitioning | Community Strengthening Each child living on the street in Jinja, Uganda has a unique story, but many of their stories have similar themes. Broken homes, poverty, abuse, neglect, and addiction are common threads. And many of these children have something else in common—a family who loves them—and if provided with the appropriate supports, these families could welcome their children home. The passionate and well-trained staff at Jinja Connection run a day program open to children and youth who live on the street. Their goal is to walk with each child, at his [...]

The Pathway HomeAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:31:30-05:00

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 ChildrenAllison Coble2024-01-10T14:26:57-05:00

Heaven’s Family: A Story of Donor Transformation

Tags: Transitioning “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 he visited orphanages as a child sponsor through the organization’s Orphan’s Tear Ministry. Her sentiment—along with the ever-expanding body of research on family-based care—is what compelled Heaven’s Family to radically change their approach to caring for vulnerable children. Heaven’s Family, a Christian missions organization with offices in the [...]

Heaven’s Family: A Story of Donor TransformationAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:09:05-05:00

The Long Road Back: Transitioning to Family Care in Rwanda

Tags: Transitioning In Rwanda, an estimated 860,000 children and young people have lost one or both parents from the 1994 genocide, HIV and AIDS, or poverty. The strain that this has placed on families is overwhelming. In 2012 there were 3,300 children living in 33 institutions, commonly known as orphanages, across the country. Hope and Homes for Children (HHC), an organization working to place vulnerable children in family-based care and prevent institutional care for children, is partnering with the Rwandan government, UNICEF, and other partners to transition children out of all 33 institutions and into [...]

The Long Road Back: Transitioning to Family Care in RwandaAllison Coble2024-01-17T17:45:03-05:00

Children in Families: A Community Approach to Reintegration

Tags: Foster Care | Transitioning Everyone in Kampong knows Sopheat* — his mischievous laugh, his lively personality, his story. Sopheat was among the very first children to be placed with a foster family in Kampong, a Cambodian village of sweeping rice paddies and swaying sugar palm trees. Sopheat’s street is now home to several other children living with foster families, and over the past few years their village has welcomed 35 children previously living in vulnerable situations. Children in Families (CIF) is a Christian organization in Cambodia working to reintegrate at-risk children into families. Many of [...]

Children in Families: A Community Approach to ReintegrationAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:16:10-05:00

HelpKids Centre: Supporting the Love of Families in Sri Lanka

Tags: Transitioning | Economic Empowerment Family-based, alternative care for orphans and vulnerable children is on the rise in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Alison Atkinson and her husband Narel joined Australian Christian Churches International Relief (ACCI) 10 years ago, as field workers in Colombo. They established the HelpKids Centre, a local, community-based organization that strengthens local families living in slums and severe poverty. It functions as a community center, providing early childhood education, daycare support, counseling for parents, and medical assistance, supports women in accessing vocational training, and coordinates women’s and children’s clubs. The Atkinson’s approach to [...]

HelpKids Centre: Supporting the Love of Families in Sri LankaAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:15:06-05:00

Out of Isolation and Into Families

Tags: Transitioning | Economic Empowerment In Armenia there are around 4,500 children living in residential institutions, a situation caused by the weak social protection system, an insufficient number of community-based services and lack of gate-keeping mechanisms due to overall weakness and inefficiency of the system, leftover from the Soviet Union. In the last decade, the Government of Armenia (GoA) initiated the process of reorganization of residential institutions for children and began making significant investments in the development of social services and program alternatives to residential care. However, Armenia faces multiple difficulties in sustaining various initiatives [...]

Out of Isolation and Into FamiliesAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:10:03-05:00

A Family of His Own

Tags: Foster Care | Transitioning | Economic Empowerment He has one of those personalities that you can’t forget. His nickname “Pastor” came from his love of standing up surrounded by a crowd of his peers preaching from the Bible. Captain America or Iron Man might even at times make an appearance on the Sea of Galilee. Nine-year-old Jason, brings a continual joy and laughter to those who know him. Although Jason’s joy is palpable, the road in his short life has had its share of challenges. Born to a mother with schizophrenia, Jason [...]

A Family of His OwnAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:31:35-05:00

Gotcha Day: Local Churches Support Adoptions and Families

Tags: Adoption | Foster Care | Transitioning | Community Strengthening | Economic Empowerment In our family we have “Gotcha Day” celebrations for our two adopted children. It’s a special day each year when we celebrate and relive the story of bringing home a baby from Russia to become a part of our family. We have fun with cake and a special meal then sit together and go through the photo album. We remember all the special events surrounding the adoption and becoming a new family. I believe our Gotcha Day celebrations [...]

Gotcha Day: Local Churches Support Adoptions and FamiliesAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:28:25-05:00

Partnering with the Local Church & Supporting Families to Care for Their Children

Tags: Transitioning | Economic Empowerment Meeting the needs of orphans and vulnerable children is often best accomplished through partnerships with the local communities and ministries who are leading the day-to-day responses. The Alliance for Children Everywhere (ACE) supports this principal in their work on behalf of children and families in Zambia. ACE is a Christian nonprofit child welfare organization in Tucson, Arizona that was founded in 1969 by Virginia “Jennie” Woods. ACE’s overarching approach to caring for orphans is to empower professionals, families, churches and communities to care for and support children and families in crisis within [...]

Partnering with the Local Church & Supporting Families to Care for Their ChildrenAllison Coble2024-01-17T19:22:24-05:00