Mission to Maua-Giving Hope

I was happy for the chance to go with the director of Giving Hope to some more distant communities where the orphaned families live.  This time he wanted to show me some situations where the Giving Hope leaders work with others in their working group.  A working group consists of twenty families (representing about 80 people) and serves as both an extended family and a support group.  Family leaders elect their officers and choose their adult mentor, then meet on a regular basis to share ideas, problems, and be there for each other. The officers of working groups are also occasionally brought together for full day meetings at Maua Hospital to learn more about leadership, life skills, and opportunities for their communities

Working group leaders also get together periodically to help one family in their group.  The morning we were there, group leaders were in the field helping to weed the small farm used by one of the families. The working group also gets together whenever a new Giving Hope house is dedicated for one family in their group. We were able to visit a new working group that had come together just the week before.  They had already elected their leaders and, with the social worker’s guidance, were planning a project for their group.

We went to one area where there is rivalry, even hostility, between villages on each side of the river.  Giving Hope has paired mentors and families from both sides of the river into a working group, with the expectation that, by working together, the orphan families will encourage and model cooperation rather than the current rivalry.

We also had a chance to touch base with some of the recent graduates of the program.  They are doing well.  The seamstress has a small store where she also sells beans and other produce.  The girl working in her small farm plot will soon start a job as a teaching assistant, and the hairdresser had customers waiting for her services.  None of them will make a lot of money, but just a little income plus the subsistence farming will be enough for their families to survive and to be self sufficient.

I believe that Giving Hope is taking the right approach for these young heads-of-household by establishing a goal for their lives and giving them needed resources of food, housing, and start-up funds for their business or vocation.  Giving Hope is giving them the encouragement of professional social workers and mentors in their communities, and the support of other orphaned families in similar situations.  These orphaned children can then be healed emotionally and grow spiritually. With this comprehensive help, Giving Hope is empowering these families so that they will become self-sufficient within three years.  Once a family no longer needs their help, Giving Hope is then able to help other orphaned families. There are 42,000 orphans just in the Maua area alone.

Similar Giving Hope programs exist in other African countries.  For more information, contact their parent organization at www.zoeministry.org.