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Family Empowerment

We believe that child sponsorship is an incredibly effective tool for improving the lives of vulnerable children, but it does not come without limitations. One alternative that combats some of these limitations is our Family Empowerment Program.

Family Empowerment provides education, guidance, spiritual mentoring, training, medical help, and employment opportunities for entire families, not just one or two children.

When you sponsor an entire family, you develop relationships with the parents as well as all the children, and through your support and encouragement you will be able to impact their lives for many years to come.

Family Empowerment is different in another way, too. Our dedicated staff work closely with the parents to help them develop and implement skills that will allow them to be self-sufficient and provide for the physical, educational, and spiritual needs of their children.

Parents and caregivers want to succeed and meet the physical, educational and spiritual needs of their children. By sponsoring a family, you can help them accomplish their goals! You can empower an entire family for $250 per month, or you can choose to provide partial sponsorship for just $50 or $125.

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Shining the Light

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Shining the Light Ministry focuses on bringing hope where there is no hope, and the love of Christ into the lives of the deaf, those living with albinism, the disabled, and those left behind.  In 2020, Shining the Light completed its first course of tailoring which  involved breaking down cultural barriers training those with disabilities.

Future Shining the Light Training Facility

Ugandans have the heart of a fighter, they want to work, they want to learn skills, they want to be busy, they want better lives.  Over the years I have witnessed lives changed.  Hope brought into hopeless situations.  Children starting to dream about what their future could hold.  God and his infinite goodness has blessed the work of our hands.  Women now able to provide for their families, youth are off the streets and busy with new skills, children with disabilities given a chance, not just a handout.  We are breaking down cultural barriers training those with disabilities.

Uganda has a long list of handcrafts and skills: tailoring, machine knitting, pottery, shoe making, basket and mat weaving, soapstone carving and painting, cow horn carving, beadwork bags, bag weaving and crochet.  These skills could change the course of poverty in families and the future of the youth.

God is faithful!  We are doing great things and impacting lives in our community. The ability to buy land and build a facility for skills training  would increase our impact and  many more lives could be changed.  The stories could be endless!

Goal to reach: $23,000

To donate toward training facility, please click here: Every Child Ministries | Kindful 

To purchase craft items made by students trained at Shining the Light, click here.

Hebrews 13:21-” May the God of peace provide you with every good thing you need in order to do his will, and may he, through Jesus Christ, do in us what pleases him.”

Consider partnering with Linda Moore’s ministry to continue teaching skills for the glory of God.

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Sogakope Hope Center

ECM has been working in the Sogakope area in the Volta Region of southeastern Ghana for many years. The work began when we worked with women who were enslaved at the local shrines, helping to free them from that horrible bondage. Eventually, the ministry began to focus on children in the local schools, reaching out to the schools and communities with the gospel, presented via film media as well as personal evangelism. Our staff made frequent visits to local school and churches and conducted follow-up discipleship. This aspect of the ministry continues today.

In time, through this work, it became apparent that many children and families in the community needed assistance in meeting basic needs, including education. The staff also discovered that there are many children in the community with albinism, and their basic needs were often not being met. Because of this, ECM launched its newest outreach in Ghana in late 2020, the Sogakope Hope Center. The ministry will focus on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable children in the community, including those with albinism, providing education, meeting basic medical and physical needs, as well as spiritual mentoring.

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His-Ability

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Hope for Children with Disabilities

In Africa, a child born with a disability is at an extreme disadvantage, as most families don’t have the means to properly care for the child’s special needs.

At ECM we have chosen to focus on God’s ability to restore hope in the lives of these children, and not on their disability.

We work to improve quality of life by covering the cost of life-changing surgeries and other medical expenses, and providing medical equipment such as wheelchairs or walkers, physical therapy, and respite care for parents. We educate families and communities regarding disabilities and how the needs of children with these special needs can be met.

Your gift today allows ECM to continue to bring hope to children through programs like our ministry to Children with disabilities.

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Vocational Education

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Vocational training for “hands on” careers is a part of many of ECM’s programs for street youth, orphans & vulnerable youth, and victims of ritual servitude. Some youth are enrolled in vocational schools. Others learn by being apprenticed to a master worker in the trade they want to learn. Skills that our youth have learned are automotive body work, baking & catering, carpentry, dressmaking, electrical, hair dressing, and mechanical.

 

The vocational option may be chosen in cases where a youth is older and has missed a lot of school, or does not pass the state exams which allow students to go on academically, or simply because vocational skills best suit a youth’s interests and God-given gifts. It has enabled many street youth to establish businesses, and some to have their own homes, to get married & start families.

 

Your gift today allows ECM to continue to bring hope to children through programs like Vocational Education.

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Tororo Hope Center

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The town of Tororo is located in Eastern Uganda, near the Kenyan border, and is the main municipal, administrative and commercial center of Tororo District. Our work in Tororo began in early 2015. It started when one of our ECM workers in Uganda visited her home neighborhood and discovered a few families with albino children that were in desperate need of help! Each of their stories is a touching one that breaks your heart! Just like any other child everywhere, they want to be loved, they want to have friends and they want to go to school! Unfortunately, children with albinism are mistreated, discriminated against, and at times even abused (see Children with Albinism). With your support of this project, their simple dreams will come true!

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Gulu Hope Center

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When ECM met the children of Gulu in 2006; originally called Tegot Atoo, it was an IDP camp (internally displaced people–sort of like being a refugee in your own land).  The camps were established by the Ugandan government during Joseph Kony & the LRA’s 20 year reign of terror in Northern Uganda.  They were meant to protect the people, but they brought their own problems.  When ECM came in, Joseph Kony had just left the area and things were still fragile and unstable.  However, he did not return, so finally rebuilding began.  ECM “adopted” the Tegot camp, and later the resettlement area around it.  This did not mean we could meet all the needs of the area.  It simply meant that we decided to concentrate our efforts there.  That has proven to be a big enough task.

ECM has sponsored more than 70 children from the area to enable them to get schooling or vocational training.  The war has torn apart virtually every family, but ECM is working to strengthen what remains.  Our sponsoring partners make it possible for staff to regularly visit and counsel families, help rebuild huts and latrines for elderly grandmothers who have taken in war orphans, help families get established in agriculture, and much more.  We have worked closely with the local primary school, where we have developed a library and made other improvements.

Most of the children are slowly recovering from post traumatic stress syndrome and are gradually beginning to find glimpses of joy and find hope for the future.  A program of nonformal education has helped children prepare for school.  One of our greatest joys has been seeing children who are just beginning to read, teaching the alphabet and its sounds to their parents at home, who were unable to attend school because of the war.

Tegot Atoo means “mountain of death,” but now it is becoming a place of life as the Gospel penetrates the hearts of families.  Many were forced to commit horrific, unspeakable acts during the war, in order to survive.  Although they were forced to do it, they still are haunted by guilt.  What sweet release to know that no matter what they have done, they can find forgiveness and healing in Jesus!

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Next Step

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ECM’s Next Step program exists to help ensure that our children are fully prepared for life after sponsorship. It consists of three steps, all critical in guiding our children from sponsorship to a Spirit-filled life of independence, from being learners to being leaders in their families, churches, and communities.

Step 1

In this step, children in the last two years of secondary school are introduced, through the Crossroads Curriculum, to the various aspects of moving from sponsorship to independence. These include but are not limited to:

  • Internships and job skills
  • Financial matters, including budgeting
  • Decision making
  • Leadership skills
  • Relationships building and service to others
  • Personal spiritual growth
  • Personal physical and emotional health
  • Educational choices
  • Correspondence with US sponsors

 

To accomplish this goal, ECM staff will provide:

  • Counseling and guidance services
  • Skills and vocational training
  • Appropriate opportunities for service
  • Educational mentoring opportunities

 

Step 2

In this step, young adults who have completed secondary school or have reached the age of 20, will receive support allowing them to successfully navigate the transition from sponsorship to independence, building on all that was learned in Step 1. This support includes the following:

  • Financial support through scholarships whenever possible (see Next Step Financial Support policies)
  • Vocational counseling, mentoring, training
  • Spiritual guidance
  • Business startup assistance

 

Young adults in the final year of Step 2 will be encouraged to live in an independent setting, apart from family and/or caregivers.  (At Haven of Hope in Ghana, this setting will eventually be a transition home, built on the Haven of Hope campus, designed specifically to house these young adults).  During this transition year, these young adults will be strongly encouraged to take care of their own household chores, make financial decisions, build adult relationships, and make biblical choices regarding their own physical, emotional and spiritual health, all while still receiving guidance and supervision from ECM staff.  Young adults in Step 2 include:

  • University students
  • Vocational students
  • Gap year students
  • Those starting a business

 

Step 3

In this step, young adults make the final transition from sponsorship to independence.  After successfully completing Step 2, young adults will leave the sponsorship program, will no longer be eligible for financial support, and will live independently of ECM supervision.  However, ALL former ECM sponsored children will continue to be eligible for non-financial support through counseling, mentoring and spiritual guidance.  They will be encouraged to seek advice from ECM staff and to give of their time, abilities and resources, to support other vulnerable children

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Naigobya Hope Center

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ECM’s ministry in Naigobya, Uganda began through a missionary project, the Afayo Project, started in 2012. That project’s close ties with the local community and school led ultimately to the development of a Hope Center for vulnerable children, including several true orphans. Naigobya’s very rural, poverty stricken setting has led to many children being unable to attend school. The Naigobya Hope Center works closely with the school as well as the local families to meet the spiritual and educational needs of the most vulnerable in the community.

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