Hope For The Nations

All of the children that Hope for the Nations works with are 'at risk' because of the effects of extreme poverty. Poverty impacts children because it hurts families. There are a number of ways in which it does this.

Poverty is a barrier to accessing health services. HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB affect millions of parents each year; without access to treatment, parents are unable to get well, earn a living or care for their children. Sometimes this means that their children are orphaned.

Poverty impacts a family's ability to provide food, shelter and education for all of their family members. In extreme poverty conditions, families may send their children to work rather than to school; in the worst scenario, children are employed in the worst forms of labour or parents sell their children into the trafficking network.

Poverty, in a variety of ways, feeds the cycle of violence in countries that are caught in conflict. Not only does this violence kill parents and children, it also causes major upheaval in the lives of families and communities,  destroying family assets and future opportunities.

Without strategic interventions, poverty tends to be passed from one generation to another. Hope for the Nations believes that by intervening in the lives of the children who are most disadvantaged by poverty - orphans and vulnerable children - we can begin the process of change and the cycle of poverty can be broken. "Today's orphans" can be "tomorrow's leaders".