Helping Children Worldwide

About HCW

Helping Children by Strengthening and Empowering Families and Communities

Financial Integrity

Reports, accountability, and stewardship.

The Problem is Worldwide

900 million children live in multidimensional poverty, without adequate water, food, shelter, safety, or healthcare.

50% of children in Sub-saharan Africa live in households surviving on less than $3 a day. 412 million of the world's children (20%) live in extreme poverty.

Poverty during childhood equals lifelong issues - poor health, shorter lifespans, and reduced opportunities that transmit poverty to the next generation.

Progress in ending poverty has stalled due to rising conflict, climate change, and global funding cuts.


So We Fight the Fire - Not the Smoke

Our Work

Programs, alliances, and networks organized by place and purpose.

Africa

Programs and alliances with local leaders in Sierra Leone and all across the continent of Africa.

North America

Partners, volunteers, supporters, allies, and mission team members in North America - including the US, Haiti, and Guatemala.

Global Networks

Field-shaping alliances and communities of practice.

HCW research and publications
Resources

Research, publications, media, curricula, and essential resources.

Our Impact

Impacts on children, families, resources, communities, and systems of care.

People

Stories of individual growth and change.

Resources

Data, research, publications, media, curriculum, worship materials, and essential resources.

Systems and Community

Empowerment approaches to development, locally led collaborations, respectful alliances, ethical practices, and sustainable progress.

Child Reintegration Centre – UMC SLAC

Child Reintegration Centre – UMC SLAC

The story of the CRC is foundational to Helping Children Worldwide. Our relationship over the years has driven our work, our understanding of the adversity faced by children in the Global South, and our approach to global development and ethical alliance as a US-based NGO in a resource-rich environment.

What the CRC used to be is less important than what it is now. As the cornerstone of the Sierra Leone Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church’s work in child and family support, the CRC has become in international icon in the care reform movement. The HCW Director for Mission Advance and Partnership, Emmanuel “Nabs” Nabieu spent ten years of his childhood in residence there, six more as an employee, including three years as the Director of the CRC, and has been working side-by-side with them in his role at HCW every day since. Dr. Laura Horvath, our Senior Technical Advisor for Child Welfare and Global Engagement, was one of the first employees at HCW to take on the role of liaison with the CRC, after years in a volunteer leadership and policy-making position on our advisory boards. Together, the two of them brought care reform to the CRC, and to Sierra Leone. Mr. David T. Musa, Director of the CRC since May of 2026, has served in multiple roles there during his career. As head of the Child Support Program, then Executive Co-leader, then Senior Consultant for the Transition Coaching and Mentoring Division, he has led changes toward empowering and strengthening families and introducing a professional case-management and educated social work approach to the team he leads. In addition, he has represented the voice of the Global South in discussions on the global stage in many countries, including across the continent of Africa and in the United States. Deputy Director, Ganda Bassie, like Nabs, was an original resident of the orphanage and a care-leaver who was never reintegrated with his family during his childhood. He has led the CRC Alumni Association and is well suited to take their development work and family strengthening services to the next level.

The CRC used to speak of the work in caring for 40 children in residence, now they measure their impact in the hundreds of families they serve, and the thousands of children who benefit from their programs. You can read more about their work in stories of impact.

2020 to 2015

HCW holds information session on transformation

Day One. 1/28/2018 Back row: Darlene Armendariz and Tina DeBoeser (Ebenezer UMC), Mohamed Nabieu (CRC Director), Kim Nabieu (HCW staff), Karen Hall (Ebenezer UMC), Melody Curtiss (HCW director). Seated in […]

CRC students compete in UMC Njagboima school annual track and field games

3/31/2017 Nearly 100 of the students enrolled in our programs, including most of the residential students, attend UMC Njagboima, a big school that includes primary through senior secondary grades. This […]

CRC launches quiz competition

2/17/2017 The Child Rescue Centre has just launched bi-monthly, school notes quizzes on the first and last Friday of each month. Students are quizzed on their school notes by CRC […]