Empowering the most vulnerable children and communities to give them hope for the future.

Our Story

ORA New Zealand and Hope St have merged to form a new, effective and authentic brand. We are still the same people with the same passion and drive. We are a child focused international development and relief organisation, serving children and communities living in extreme poverty. Founded in 1980, we have been working in aid and development for nearly four decades.

ORA International was founded in Germany in 1980 and in 1999 an office was opened in New Zealand. Hope Street was founded in 2012 to fund the anti-trafficking arm of ORA New Zealand’s work. ORA New Zealand and Hope Street were supporting the same international partners and shared similar missions and values, so in 2018 our two organisations merged to have a greater impact in the communities where we work.

Our work

Uganda Child Sponsorship Programme

The team in Uganda run a rural child sponsorship programme which supports 160 children from impoverished families. Each child receives education and after-school tuition, basic health care, counselling, agricultural training, and access to extracurricular activities. The programme has a strong emphasis on life skills to raise capable and contributing community members. We have sponsored graduates who are teachers, nurses, engineers, builders, mothers, medical students, and even some who now sponsor local children themselves. While the majority of sponsored children live with extended family, the programme runs residential care homes to provide accommodation for those who are most vulnerable.

  Rural Communities Programme

The Rural Communities Programme is focused on improving the livelihood of impoverished families living in rural Uganda. Initiatives include microfinance groups equipping struggling mothers to establish income sources, agricultural projects providing families with additional income, a children’s resource library, electricity installation, and clean water projects in communities with no safe water supply. The team work closely with local schools, vocational training institutes and community leaders to implement these projects.

  Street Children’s Programme

There are an estimated 200,000 street children in Uganda, a statistic that worsens each year.1 The Street Children’s Programme works with those most at risk of being abused or trafficked. The local team provide on-street mentoring and are often able to repatriate children back to their extended families. The children who are most vulnerable and have no family support are offered a place in our safe home. There they receive education, health care, mentoring, tailoring training and life-skills.

  1. 1. United Nations Children's Fund (2014). Child Poverty and Deprivation in Uganda.

Moldova MGA Agricultural Programme

Currently the poorest country in Europe1, Moldova is experiencing chronic poverty caused by high rates of unemployment, alcoholism and population decline. We support an agricultural project growing grain crops on 400ha of land. The project provides employment for local villagers and a sustainable, local income source for other social programmes.

  1. 1. Trading Economics (2018). GDP per capita PPP, Europe.

  Ungheni Programme

A former Soviet Republic, Moldova was once known for its agricultural production as the breadbasket of the USSR. Today Moldova is the poorest country in Europe.1 It is a source country for victims of human trafficking, most of whom are taken as sex workers to the Middle East.2 The Ungheni programme works with children and youth at risk of being trafficked. The team run holiday programmes, after school activities and provide children with educational materials.

  1. 1. Trading Economics (2018). GDP per capita PPP, Europe.
  2. 2. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2017). Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Bulgaria LOGOS Programme

Bulgaria has more reported cases of human trafficking victimisation than any other country in Eastern Europe.1, 2 The LOGOS team run training schools and anti-trafficking education in Bulgaria. Additionally, they provide practical support for refugees and orphans by providing for basic needs and assisting with integration into society.

  1. 1. United States Department of State (2018). Trafficking in Persons Report, Bulgaria.
  2. 2. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2017). Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Kenya Chafisi Programme

The Chafisi team work to educate and empower Kenya’s destitute children and their families. A child sponsorship programme provides education and basic needs for children who would otherwise be illiterate. Those sponsored children who live far from schools are offered accommodation in a boarding house on the Chafisi campus.

Hope St. is currently supporting the Chafisi Programme, as they aim for self-sustainability, through the recent purchase and development of agricultural land as a local income source.

Myanmar Living Waters Programme

Myanmar’s Shan State is the world’s second largest producer of illicit opium1 and has been a significant cog in the transnational drug trade since World War II. The prevalence of opium trading has caused an over-proportion of drug addicts and family dysfunction. One in every three young boys is given to the ethnic army2 and many young girls are sold in to prostitution in China and Thailand. 

Living Waters is a children’s home which provides education and a safe, loving environment for children at risk of being trafficked or exploited. The home focuses on children from illiterate and drug-addicted families. The team also run medical clinics in regions with no access to healthcare or pharmaceuticals.

  1. 1. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2013). Opium Cultivation Rising in Burma.
  2. 2. James, Helen (2012). Security and Sustainable Development in Myanmar/Burma.

Emergency Projects Covid-19

We at Hope St are working with our local partners in Uganda, Kenya and Myanmar to implement emergency Covid-19 projects to stop the spread of Covid-19. These communities are extremely vulnerable to this pandemic as most live in areas with limited health services, and in crowded housing with an inability to isolate. They are at higher long term risk due to economic changes which will see a spike in poverty, increasing the risk children face; risks such as community violence, increased hunger, and a further reduction in access to education and healthcare. Read more about our Covid-19 work here.

Our Approach

  1. Partner with like-minded locals who share our heart, vision and values.
  2. Equip local partners to transform their communities by providing training, resource, support and accountability.
  3. Future-proof initiative to ensure long-term sustainability.

Brian, Uganda

Meet Brian*. The leader of his home village tells us Brian would not be alive today without Hope St sponsorship. Brian accessed sponsorship in 2007 when he was six years old. He has sickle cell anaemia and was often hospitalised. Brian lived in ORA Uganda’s home for extremely vulnerable children from 2009 until late 2018 when he completed his secondary schooling. Although he struggles physically, Brian is very bright. He’s now studying IT at university.

Brian loves listening to music, reading novels and being with friends. He also loves being with his family. And Brian ’s village is very happy he has grown so strong. Previously many believed Brian would die young, he was an outcast in the community, someone of no value. Now, in many communities Brian is a role model, a positive example of the hope children with sickle cell anaemia can have.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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Tessa, Uganda

Abandoned by her mother and ignored by her alcoholic father, Tessa’s* earliest memories are of regular beatings. She was forced to help her father harvest drugs. If she refused, the violence escalated. One day her father hit her head with a machete. The scar will be with her forever. 

Tessa moved to live with her grandparents in a new village. But the violence and abuse didn’t change. Her grandmother got drunk regularly and beat her. There was little food and no money for Tessa to attend school. 

Tessa began to harvest grass to make broom. She would carry them to town to sell for food. She played in the dirt and foraged for food with other young street children. One day a group of unknown adults approached Tessa and she went with them to their home. Fortunately for Tessa, they were Hope Focus social workers. Tessa’s rescue highlights how easily vulnerable child can be taken in by traffickers. 

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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Robert, Uganda

We watched Robert splint a broken arm. He runs a rural health clinic, leading nine staff. Robert trained as a nurse and graduated from Hope St sponsorship in 2014.

When asked what life would be like if he hadn’t been sponsored, he shared about his peers in his home village who are struggling with poverty, hunger, drugs and early parenthood. In stark contrast, Robert’s life is full of purpose and hope. Robert’s education has lifted his whole family out of the despair of poverty.

Robert’s father told us how his first wife died leaving five children. Then his second wife died leaving another five children. Ten mouths to feed. Struggling to care for his children, he walked with his head hung in despair. Now he walks with his head held high. Robert, his eldest child, is making him proud. Robert’s father pointed to his own clothes and says, ‘my son provided these’.

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Natalie, Bulgaria

Natalie* is Bulgarian, from a gypsy background. A relative invited her to another European country to work in a restaurant, but she was forced to work as a prostitute. While working hard for many hours, day and night, Natalie saw things happening to her co-workers, other young girls from Eastern Europe. She was so scared.

She rang a cousin, who contacted Hope St’s Bulgarian partner, LOGOS. Within a few hours a flight had been booked and a Bulgarian taxi driver in London contacted. Within a few hours Natalie was back in Bulgaria, met at the airport by a LOGOS representative, who later found Natalie a job in a local restaurant.

Natalie was saved from human trafficking, from slavery. LOGOS Bulgaria’s anti-trafficking education programme, Open Eyes, was presented ten times during 2019. The effect of this programme is far-reaching, both preventing trafficking and rescuing young women like Natalie.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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Ezra, Uganda

Ezra’s* father died when he was young. His mother was chronically ill. Her health worsened when Ezra was eleven, so he left home looking for food, walking to the city where food-market stalls were ripe for thieving. Ezra slept under a bus shelter and found solidarity with other street kids. About once a week he would make the 12 hour walk home to take food to his mother.

When Ezra was taken in to Hope Foundation’s safe home he was taught basic literacy and numeracy, and then attended a vocational training school to learn building and carpentry. Ezra is now able to earn a good wage, something he could never have imagined for his life when he was living on the streets. Meanwhile, his mother’s health issues have mostly resolved. She was put through Hope St’s microfinance programme and now runs a successful business and is saving for her retirement.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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Fiona, Uganda

Fiona* was 13 years old and living on the streets when we met her. This is her story…

Fiona’s family life was not happy. They lived in poverty and the little money they did get was spent on her father’s alcoholic habit. At 12, Fiona gathered the courage to leave. She moved to town, living on the streets, looking for small jobs to survive. At night she slept in a bus shelter or under small shopping stalls.

Staff from Hope Focus met Fiona one year later. She was miserable and timid, with no hope for an education. She was very vulnerable to being trafficked. After getting to know Fiona and validating her story, she moved in to Hope Focus’ safe home and joined the Hope family.

That was three years ago. Today, Fiona is excelling in school. Last year she scored top marks. She loves playing netball and skipping rope. Fiona is healthy, happy, and she calls her house-mother ‘Mum’ and the other children her siblings.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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Aaron, Uganda

Aaron* was only 11 when he became a street child. His brother and sister were both killed on the street. Aaron tells his own story…

My life changed when Dad started drinking. Once he beat Mum so badly she almost died, so she left us. Soon my siblings left too, running from Dad’s beatings. Dad abandoned me when I was ten. Neighbours occasionally fed me but mostly I was hungry and had to steal. Eventually I was caught and forced to leave the village. They would have killed me if I’d tried to stay.

I lived on the street for two years. I’m not a thief, but I stole food from market stalls to survive.

When I was thirteen, I came to live at Hope Foundation. I want to be a welder when I finish school. I’ll be able to provide for my family.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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James & Jordan, Uganda

James and Jordan* are healthy 11 year old boys who need to be reminded to bathe and scrub their teeth! Yet they help their disabled mother as much as they can. We first met James, Jordan and their mother Marissa in 2008. The little babies were malnourished and at high risk. Marissa’s husband had abandoned them, with no support, shelter, food or clothes. Marissa had no way to feed or provide medical care for her children. She went to ORA Uganda monthly to get food for her babies.

ORA Uganda began a Microfinance programme to help Marissa and other women in her situation become self-sufficient. With constant monitoring and encouragement, the family’s situation began to change. Marissa has built two huts and a bathroom for her family. The health of her children has improved. Above all Marissa has found hope and can now feed and support her children.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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Mary, Moldova

In the summer of 2010, a Moldovan couple met three girls at a playground, including fifteen year old Mary* whose alcoholic father and mother had abandoned her and her older sister the previous autumn. The girls had stayed with friends or strangers over the harsh winter, often spending a night on the street.

The couple took the three girls into their home, fed them, cleaned them up, and washed their clothes. Mary lived with them throughout secondary school, and her performance at school improved. She even won school competitions. Mary is now at university.

Mary was at high risk of being trafficked that winter after being abandoned by her parents, spending many nights on the streets or with strangers. Her life has changed so much after that chance meeting in a playground in 2010.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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Catherine, Myanmar

At the tender age of five, Catherine’s* mother and grandmother tried to sell her. A Thai woman was visiting their village in rural Myanmar to recruit child prostitutes and Catherine very nearly became a victim. While we cannot publish the details of Catherine’s rescue, we know it would not have been possible without our local team, Noah and his wife Ruth. They facilitated her journey to safety and she now lives in hope along with 31 other rescued children.

Now eight years old, Catherine lives a very happy life. She goes to school, has good friends, is incredibly loved, and laughs often. Noah and Ruth are working with her mother and grandmother to one day repatriate Catherine back to her family home.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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Faith, Uganda

Faith* lives with her sister and widowed father. He grows barely enough food for the family on a small plot of land. He also weaves and sells grass baskets to buy soap and other necessities.

Faith’s father is so grateful for the opportunities his daughter is getting through Hope St sponsorship, and for regular visits from the sponsorship programme social workers. They have helped him negotiate access through a neighbour so the girls have a shorter walk to school. They also encouraged him to dig a latrine for safer sanitation, and build a second hut for the girls so they can sleep well and learn better.

Sponsorship goes way beyond providing one child’s education and medical care. Sponsorship for Faith has also given her father hope and motivation to provide better living conditions for his daughters, and is motivating a community to look for new ways to see their children succeed in life.

*Name changed for privacy purposes.

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