We want to sustainably improve the living situation of children & young people at risk. We currently support 22,000 children and young people aged 0 to 18. These children are often half-orphans or orphans, growing up with families in severe need or even in households headed by children.
How we support our children
The children live with local families, which ensures that they grow up in a family environment and maintain a connection with their roots. Over 600 trained Community Home Visitors provide individual support to the children and their families, tailored to their needs. To improve the child’s well-being, support is provided in many areas: Health and nutrition, vocational and school education, child protection and legal, psychosocial support, safe housing and economic empowerment of families.
The CHVs ensure that our children have a roof over their heads and grow up in a violence-free environment with enough food and access to health care. The aim is to provide sustainable support for families to be able to provide for their children’s needs independently in the long term. The project offers all members of the household a chance to improve their economic, social and health situation as well as access to education.
Economic strengthening
To enable families to build up an additional income, we distributed goats, chickens and sheep. If a child in a household is the head of the family and is unable to adequately support himself, let alone the other siblings, these families receive monthly payments. We also regularly set up village savings clubs, which gives families access to micro-credit and an incentive to save. Currently, over 2000 are active in village savings clubs.
Psychosocial support
We ensure that children have a safe place where they can speak, play and flourish freely and without restraint. They receive psychosocial support through our CHVs who we have trained specifically in this area. Our Safe Park and Children Clubs also give our children the opportunity to interact, play and develop with others in a safe environment.
Education
Our goal is to support families to the point where they can afford the school fees for their children themselves. Until the families stand on their own two feet, we support some children with school scholarships. To encourage responsibility and self-involvement of the families, we normally only finance up to 80% of the secondary school fees. We also arrange vocational training for young people, for example to become electricians, mechanics, tailors or hairdressers.
Health & Nutrition
Each of our children knows his/her HIV status! In workshops and in personal conversations, the caregivers impart knowledge to educate our children about HIV and malnutrition. Children with deficiency symptoms receive nutritional supplements. If the malnutrition is caused by an unbalanced diet, the families also receive seeds and training to start a vegetable garden or they become eligible for our vertical sack gardening program.
Our commitment against violence & neglect
Unfortunately, we are confronted with cases of child abuse again and again. Paralegals have been specially trained to counter child abuse and be there for the children involved. All our team members have been educated about our child protection policies and are committed to protecting our children from risk, abuse, neglect, discrimination or exploitation.
Please support us in giving these children the best possible future
Please support the area of child and youth welfare by strengthening families and thus give our children a smile.
Your donation is tax deductible!