Lift The Children: “Supporting African Children”

Lift The Children is a humanitarian organization focused on helping abandoned African children by providing; a safe, nurturing and loving environment. The orphans are given shelter, food, education and proper healthcare. Lift The Children is committed to ensuring the children receive proper education, stating “Lift the Children makes a solemn commitment to the children in our care. A great emphasis is placed on education. Not to do so would only provide a band-aid solution – education is the key to self-sufficiency.” Believing children are the future, the organization is focused on building them up, so that they can be future leaders of their generation.

Can you tell our viewers a little bit more about the aim of your organization?

We are a humanitarian organization called Lift The Children that help orphans in Africa and other places.  Our main focus is to provide food, shelter, health and education to Orphans and the most vulnerable.  We currently support over 90 orphanages and close to 14,000 children.  The majority of our current work is in East Africa and we plan to expand throughout Africa and beyond.  The majority of us are volunteers.  Our uniqueness is that every penny of every dollar donated goes directly to the children. All wages, administration, airfare, transportation and other expenses are paid for by a generous grant from the John Volken foundation that supports us.  Our main goal is to start gaining sponsorship and donation support so we can grow to the other vulnerable orphans in need.  We are very passionate about this work.

What African countries are you currently focused on and why?

 It’s hard to decide which area of the world to work in as there are so many areas in need.  East Africa was an easy fit with 8 million orphans in Kenya alone and 52 million orphans in Africa…what more needs to be said!?  The simple fact that Kenya is an English-speaking country made it the easiest starting point for our efforts.  We have since expanded to Uganda and are looking into Mozambique and Liberia and possible next countries of support.

Your organization seems to place a huge emphasis on educating the children. Can you further explain why this is so important?

We are a grassroots organization that focuses on sustainability rather than dependency.  Our main goal is to give funds that support and sustain children in orphanages but to also encourage, train and support self-reliability through income generating projects and education.  Education really is the key to all long-term poverty challenges and our goal of making all children into responsible, social conscious citizens contributing to their societies is paramount.

What do you believe sets Lift The Children apart from other organizations with the same goal?

Here are some of the main differences with our organization and others:

1.    100% of all funds donated to Lift The Children go directly to the children.  Every other expense is paid with a generous grant from the John Volken foundation.  In addition the majority of us our volunteers that care deeply about this cause.

2.    Our focus is sustainability and in so doing do not give all the money needed for everything in an orphanage.  We take care of the basics and then through support enable them to reach out and find other means of support through income generation and education.

3.    We handle the children in each orphanage as a whole so all can benefit rather than singling out individual children giving them collective benefits with their friends/brothers/sisters/ in which they live with.  This was all children have a fair chance rather than just a couple