Featured Story
Featured Story
Maternal Health is an orphan prevention strategy
Our Work in Africa.
We work with local leaders to improve programs and conditions that impact the wellbeing of children and to strengthen the systems of care that support them.
HCW has been continuously in Africa since 2000. We have worked in tandem with allies in Sierra Leone the entire time. We work in close collaboration with African Bishops of the UMC in Sierra Leone and all across the continent, establish connections with government officials and civil society leadership in the fields of child welfare and global health.
We are a "champion" organization - a supporter of direct service providers with deep understanding and connection to the needs of the communities we are supporting.
Our growing alliance with HIRF - Healey International Relief Foundation - has been of mutual benefit for the expansion of the work to support systems of care in Sierra Leone. Our role as secretariat for Sierra Leone Coalition for Family Care, and in supporting the work of the Child Reintegration Centre to bring the voices of the Global South to the front of the global stage for sustainable impact is another example of what happens when US global allies intentionally take a back seat and allow Africans to lead.
Africa
HCW enthusiastically embraces Sierra Leone’s expanding requirements for global alliances as a sign of progress toward implementation of government oversight and regulatory standards. In full compliance with these standards, HCW registered our African Programs offices as HCW Sierra Leone. Emmanuel Mohammed Nabieu is the HCW International Director of Mission Advancement and Partnership, and Country Director for HCW Sierra Leone.
Africa is at the center of our orphan prevention strategies.
Our collaborations grow out of our trusted relationships. Building on our historic relationships in Africa, and in direct collaboration with our longest continuous ally in Africa, and facilitated by the UMC General Board of Global Ministries, and other mission allies and partners in the US, we met with all of the UMC African Bishops and many children’s mission and orphanage directors throughout the continent.
We expanded into other organizations in Sierra Leone and elsewhere on the continent by working in tandem with CRC’s Transition Coaching and Mentoring Department and their Case Management Team to bring real world experience of care reform success into the global conversation through research, public presentation, and direct conversations. We continue to support their work and to connect expertise to others in Africa, in order to transform child residential programs to provide family support services and family strengthening, to ensure that one day soon, no child in Africa will ever be an orphan.
In the past five years, CRC and other allies in Sierra Leone have begun collaborating on a national standard for alternative care, so that when a child cannot live with their parents for reasons other than poverty, that a foster care system is in place that will provide the loving home necessary to form resilience and a healthy sense of identity and belonging.
Other expanded connections and collaborations in Africa came through Together for Global Health, an HCW managed coalition of health providers, primarily faith-based organizations like HCW, and others that were absorbed through the merger of Compassionate Birth Network with Together for Global Health. Ensuring maternal health in a country with the lowest childbirth survival rate is a primary orphan prevention strategy in Sierra Leone, and across the continent of Africa.
Note to Donors and Supporters:
The support we provide to local programs in Africa does not divert any of the donor dollars that were intended for other mission allies.
Support that is designated for African allies and programs cannot be diverted to programs in other parts of the world.
Our Work in Africa
We enter into formal alliance agreements with nonprofit organizations that commit to operate within the mission anchors that guide our choices, and demonstrate alignment with our core values and mission goals. We evaluate and select alliances with care, evaluate formal MOUs and annual funding agreements based on success in reaching established program and project goals, and progress toward increased capacity and impact.
How HCW Global Alliance Works in Africa
Our alliances include the United Methodist Church of Sierra Leone (Sierra Leone Annual Conference); the Child Reintegration Centre, UMC-SLAC; Mercy UMC Hospital, UMC-SLAC; the Missionary Resource and Training Centre, UMC-SLAC; Healey International Relief Foundation; and Child and Family Permanency Services.
How HCW funding works in Africa.
We provide partial funding for many of the programs that are run by our allies, and also support the work of the Sierra Leone Coalition for Family Care, the TGH collaboration for Maternal and Infant Survival Midwifery Training program, and the Village Partnership collaborations between rural communities and supporting institutions of UMC SLAC.
In addition, projects may be funded as a direct request of an existing ally, either through a collaborative mission team project, or a detailed project plan that will be managed by the local ally.
Our impact grows annually. Because of our commitment to ethical alliance, capacity-building, and empowerment models in development, our allies’ ability to sustain and maintain progress increases, as they take the lead in managing program design, decisions, and implementation. Our goal with every ally is to work ourselves out of a job, and for them to join with us in becoming part of the helping force for others.
The Story of Impact PICTURED ON THIS PAGE
The photo of the young mother and her daughter that is featured as a background image on this page was taken by the HCW Executive Director on her first trip to Sierra Leone.
The young woman had enrolled her child in the Mercy UMC Hospital’s Outreach Nutrition Clinic for villages and destitute families. The young woman had followed the clinician’s directions carefully, resulting in her baby gaining weight and recovering her age-appropriate development progress in record time. On the day of the visit, they were presented with a certificate along with three other families graduating from the nutrition program. Many nutrition programs rely on ingredients not found in Sierra Leone. The Mercy program chose to use a locally manufactured product with all local ingredients that are grown in Sierra Leone to perform this miracle.
This photo is a symbol of the resources that can be leveraged within a country, the workers who think creatively to solve local problems, and the direct benefits for the people we serve together.
Resources for work in Africa.
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Rising Tides 2020 Resources