Our Mission

Family Hope, a non-profit charity, is driven by our strong desire to connect with poor women and vulnerable children who live in central Zambia and metropolitan Nairobi, Kenya. We focus primarily on orphans, street kids, and guardians whose impoverished lives have been further traumatized by HIV/AIDS. Family Hope talks t with these poor in order to understand their concerns and hopes. We provide opportunities for our clients to acquire the human, social, physical and financial capital they need to improve the overall quality of their lives. These opportunities are created:

1. by employing these women and youth in labor intensive construction of cost effective houses and other structures that benefit extremely destitute households,
2. by engaging them in savings practices to help them acquire start-up capital for self-employed businesses,
3. by providing them with business training which will assist them in re-entering the informal economy of Zambia or Kenya with realistic confidence, and
4. by mentoring our clients through guidance counseling, organizing clients into support groups, and helping them to understand and embrace the new habits which will be required to approach life more effectively.

We will do all this because we want to each and every one of our clients, whom we consider to be our dear brothers and sisters, to have the opportunity to live life and not just merely survive it.

How You Can Help

 “What’s the difference between Kenya and the Titanic? When the Titanic went under at least the lights were on.” When Kenya was experiencing an extended drought in 2002 this was the joke going around Nairobi, expressing people’s frustration with electrical service that had been reduced to six hours every other day. Ninety percent of Kenya’s power is hydro-electric and a drought had almost completely dried up the reservoirs that generated power for the country. Here in Zambia in southern Africa where I currently live and work, a tourist slogan “Come to Zambia, The Real Africa”  has been turned into a joke by Zambians experiencing similar frustrations. The slogan tries to suggest to visitors that large parts of Zambia are as wild, pristine and untamed as they were one hundred years ago and therefore still the ‘real Africa’. But it is also used by some Zambians to describe the limitless problems every person faces each day in this country -- like most of the ‘real Africa’. Unemployed? Welcome to the “Real Africa”. Not enough to eat? Welcome to the “Real Africa”. Living in a shack? Welcome to the “Real Africa”.

Sixty-seven percent of the population of Zambia is labeled by the UN and other aid agencies as the ‘core poor’. The life of the core poor person can be compared to a life lived with a persistent migraine headache. No matter what you do you can’t make he pain of the headache go away. Many will remark that the pain of Zambia’s core poor can’t be remedied either. There is certainly plenty of suffering in Zambia, the “Real Africa”, because it is a convergence point for most of the impoverishing forces that are part of the modern global economic and political landscape. The Zambian core poor who suffer the most are
the numerous orphans, street children, and HIV/AIDS infected and affected households – households usually led by grandmothers, young widows or other children. In spite of all this, the beauty of Zambia is that a little bit of assistance can go  long way in seriously changing the economic fortunes and social status of these very same poor.

I need your help in letting these orphans, street children and women of Zambia know that the world hasn’t forgotten them. I ant them to know that their suffering means something to other caring human beings like you. My hope is that these poor come to know of people in the world, outside Zambia and Kenya, who are willing to lend a helping hand to those living in both f these countries, who want to help themselves.

Family Hope is working with Global Friends in Action Trust, a Zambian charity that serves HIV/AIDS affected and infected poor people, to construct decent, cost effective houses for poor households using labor intensive technology. Every $3000 we raise through donations can improve the economic fortunes and life opportunities for 60 to 90 Zambians. The average poor household in Zambia has 8-14 members. The most desperate of these large poor families will receive a new well-constructed welling. The construction team that builds these houses is made up of members from ten other destitute HIV/AIDS affected and infected families. During their five month attachment with us the team is trained in building skills. And because we save part of their wages each week, at the end of this time they will have enough money to start their own self-employed business. As a result of their self-employment, all ten of these Zambian women or street youth will be in a much better position to care for the many young dependents who rely on them for their survival and well-being.

How Will We Use Your Donation?

$3000 USD provides for:

1. The construction of a 6x5 meter (approx 19.5x16.5 ft), four room house for a client who is an HIV/AIDS affected woman, typically raising 6-14 dependents.
2. A training course in building construction for a member of 10 other impoverished households - each of whom also have 6-14 dependents relying on this sole provider's meager income.
3. A stipend for the participants of the training program. Mentoring programs will enable them to engage in small scale agriculture and/or begin a small self-employed business.

 
Think of all the people in your life who believed in you, who gave you that little break, or who gave you a boost in self confidence that changed your life, even if it was in a small way. I’m asking your help so that these poor HIV/AIDS affected Zambian families come to know someone believes in them and in their ability to turn their lives around.