Building Sustainability Through Local Involvement

This is the fifth edition in our blog series surrounding The Hope Effect’s values, based on six orphan care standards: 1) Family, 2) Excellence, 3) Spirituality, 4) Preparation, 5) Sustainability, and 6) Innovation. 

Sustainability

Through local leadership, alumni involvement, and efficiency, we build self-sustaining orphan care models. 

At The Hope Effect, our mission is to change how the world cares for orphans. And we believe that we – with your partnership – can do just that! But with an estimated 140 million orphans worldwide, we can’t do it alone. A single organization simply doesn’t have the manpower or financial resources to continue the everyday operation of family-style orphan care homes in countries all over the world.

That’s why local community involvement is so important. It’s essential to have community support as we build efficient, self-sustaining orphan care models that can continue once The Hope Effect isn’t running the day-to-day operations.

Currently, The Hope Effect is working on projects in three locations: two cities in Honduras, and San Luis Rio Colorado, Mexico. We are working hard to provide family-style care to orphans in those cities, but our strategy is to involve the local community in the effort to solve their orphan care problems.

We want The Hope Effect to be the catalyst – igniting a spark that the local community can fan into a flame. We may get things started by educating governments and organizations about family-style solutions and showing them how to implement that type of care. But once the homes are up and running, the community needs to take ownership of and sustain these orphan care solutions (with continuing guidance and support from us, of course).

That’s why we’ve been spending so much time building relationships with the government and other organizations and individuals in San Luis. Not only do we need government approval to actually provide family-style care to orphans in that city, but we need the support and involvement of the local community. With our international office in San Luis and our Efecto Esperanza staff who reside in that city, we’ve been working to establish the necessary structure for sustainability. And our goal is to eventually partner with local businesses and community members to raise funds within Mexico, rather than relying solely on the support from our donors in other countries.

Ultimately, sustainability requires local involvement. We look forward to continuing and deepening our partnership with local governments and communities as we seek to change how the world cares for orphans.

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There’s only one value left! Next month, we’ll explore our final value…innovation!