Humanitarian Aid
In 2009, UNICEF estimated there are 143 to 210 million orphans world-wide. Most of these children will spend their entire childhoods within the orphanage walls. They live day to day receiving only minimal interaction with caregivers. These children do not receive enough food, medical attention, social interaction, or education. Most orphaned children are delayed developmentally by four to six months for every year they live in an institution. When these children "age out" of the orphanage, usually between the age of 14 and 18, 20% will commit suicide within a year of leaving. Surviving orphans statistically turn to crime by joining gangs, the mafia, and even terrorist organizations in order to survive. 80% will turn to prostitution. This lifestyle makes them more likely to perpetuate the cycle, abandon their own children, and exponentially increase the cycle of neglect. It is a dangerous and desperate problem. Hope International understands that it is critical to help the children left behind.
Our Humanitarian Aid programs have included:
- Loving Hands Program -- provides volunteers to teach English, music, and life skills while living and working in orphanages.
- Gift of Touch Program -- sends volunteers to China and Russia and Honduras for a week to ten days to interact and play with the children, giving them the most precious gift of touch and love.
- Operation Father Frost -- provides over 1,200 children in orphanages in Ukraine with Christmas packages containing basic necessities such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, socks, school supplies, and combs.
- Warm Essentials Program -- provides warm clothes, coats, jackets, blankets, scarves, and mittens to children living in Russia, Ukraine, Guatemala, China, and Kazakhstan.
- China Quality of Life -- provides wheelchairs to immobile children so they can join their peers during the day and Formula Project--supply children with formula for a year.
- Hope for Liberia -- provides medical supplies, water, rice, school uniforms, school tuition and supplies, and other basic needs to children in Liberia, Africa.
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