About A Project of Hope
With so much misery in the world and so many people in need of a helping hand from their neighbors, A Project of Hope was created to help fill the gaps left behind and between larger organizations working towards the same or similar goals. There are many gaps.
However, we think 'smaller' can be better because we are personally familiar with the circumstances that our funding is contributing towards improving. Then, after the people of a particular village in Malawi say for instance, improve and become not only healthier but more self-preserving, our focus can move on to the next village and so on; one village at a time.
A Project of Hope is an international humanitarian organization based in Atlanta, GA. It was established in 2003 to help fight the effects of global poverty with a special emphasis on empowering impoverished women and mothers in order to help strengthen families, protect and foster the development of orphans and other vulnerable children, and to help communities work themselves out from poverty.
Women are at the heart of our
community-based efforts - to increase access to clean water and
sanitation, to expand economic opportunity, to support basic education,
to prevent the spread of HIV and other life threatening diseases, and
preserve natural resources for future generations while doing so.
A Project of Hope
also delivers emergency aid to survivors of natural disasters to help
people rebuild their lives.
Mission
To serve individuals and families in the poorest communities of
developing countries promoting symbiotic, sustainable solutions to
problems having poverty and illiteracy as their root causes; promoting
health, hope, and lasting change by strengthening capacity for self-help
and delivering relief during periods of emergent need.
Wrap Around Planning.
A key aspect of our approach to helping people &
changing lives is the idea of
wrap-around planning. Widely used in the U.S. in
family based therapeutic interventions and case
planning, the idea is to identify every strength that
an individual, his/her family and community might
possess. Relying on and building upon these strengths enhances ownership
by the primary people concerned, is more
cost-effective in the long-run, and improves the likelihood of
sustainable successes. This approach centers as well around family
and community values, treating individuals, families and their cultural
heritage with the utmost of dignity and respect.
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Wisdom is like the baobab tree . . . No one person can fully embrace it! - African saying |
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The other key feature to wrap-around planning that is so beneficial in a developing country is its reliance upon the individuals of a family or a community to determine the nature of the solution that they seek and the kind they will work to help implement and maintain. A Project of Hope builds around these things seeking not to dictate 'what is right' to people who are already expert on their own lives, values and culture, but rather instead seeking to empower them thus transforming their lives into the success stories they may very well already envision. Together with the strengths analysis, the development and realization of these ideas produce a ‘hand in glove’ feel of comfort, appropriateness, and achievement of goals being pursued. When implemented with equal measures of compassion and respect, we believe lasting contributions are made. |
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The families being served in 2002-3 named our organization for the 'hope' they identified ( . . . fervent in spirit, rejoicing in hope . . . ) that such a helping hand provided them. |
Helping people . . .
Changing Lives.