HCW EMPOWER Magazine 2024 Impact - Continue Reading Magazine : simplebooklet.com

UnchartedChange is king at HCW. Every year, our Director of Programs and Global Engagement asks for God to give her a word to sum up the year ahead. This year, that word was “uncharted.” Boy, oh, boy, that was deﬁnitely the right word for 2024, and it’s a good thing. Uncharted means expecting something new all the time. That is not great if you prefer a calm, ordinary environment. But that isn’t us. We are in the business of being world changers, and ordinary never changed anything. Life is a trapeze act, and you can’t get to the other side by standing on the platform, clinging to the rope you’re holding. You have to push off, let go and reach for the swing that is coming toward you. It’s disruptive, but every uncharted change brought us exponentially closer to the goals we set for ourselves. We have been catching a lot of great swings. Some of those swings took us from work in two country, to active alliances in more than 30 countries, and collaborations convened by HCW with dozens of other nonproﬁts to work on big problems together. Check out the HCW presents section to see where we’ve been and what conversations we’ve started this year.This magazine is about the difﬁcult shift in our sector to balance North-South participation. We’ve watched as other organizations struggle with the realization that people in the Global North will never get to live in the world we want to wake up in someday if we don’t relinquish control and transfer power to people in the Global South. The cover story is about the decision one organization made to resign the ﬁeld in order to make room for progress. They decided the best way to accomplish their mission was to let folks closer to the problem take over. I don’t disagree. One core HCW mission anchor is advocacy for local ownership, means embracing change, trusting God and letting go of the rope so you can catch the swing.Executive Director’s Letter2 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITION

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and we are intentionally building the capacity of local leaders so they can innovate, and lead their community out of the poverty and crisis that plagues their part of the world, at the great cost of the lives of children. We know the best practices are developed by those who are closest to the problem. So we are engaged in a multi-year listening campaign to adjust our alliances in the Global South. We are asking ourselves hard questions, and our friends are doing the same. We are building ramps and bridges we will need to get where we all want to be. I don’t think it’s a matter of relinquishing the wheel in our own car, or clearing the stage. I think a rowboat is a better metaphor. It takes a rower on each side, and one rower cannot be stronger than the other, or the boat will just be going in circles. That’s poetic, but we have a practical plan. We are in the process of letting go of prior notions about our role, and we’re catching the swing. We are convening and bringing the voices of the experts together, and holding the space for the voices of the local experts to take center stage in conversations.As we become conveners, collaborators and conversationalists, we are using the strengths we bring to the table better than we ever have before. The results of this shift in power-dynamic is just starting to take shape, but you will see it reﬂected in our center section, the annual report of impacts. It’s a good thing.CONTENTSEDITORIALPUBLISHERDr. Melody Curtiss, J.D.CONTENT & RESEARCHDr. Laura Horvath, Ed. D.Emmanuel M. NabieuYasmine VaughanDr. Melody Curtiss, J.D.DESIGN & LAYOUTDr. Melody Curtiss, J.D. PROOFREADINGLinda ReinhardCONTRIBUTORSDavid T. MusaInterns: Jessie Zhu Kathleen Pfohl Tanatswa SambanaMr. Rick AumanDr. Alan Larson, Ph.D.Mr. Frank ContehDr. Carol McIntosh, MD Internship - Investing in and trusting young people - 4Investments in Multinational Training - by David Musa - 7The World We Want - by Yasmine Vaughan- 16Annual Report [2023]When We Change - 19Teachers Learning Collaborative - by Dr. Laura Horvath - 25 Engage in Change -27Transformational Partnership in Global Health - 32Sierra Leone Coalition for Family Care - 36Strengthening and empowering families and communities.We operate through partnerships with people and organizations interested in ﬁnding solutions to the fundamental causes of child poverty and morbidity.Executive DirectorMelody Curtiss, Esq.3www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |

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We would like to introduce you to the most recent interns at HCW pursing post-graduate degrees. 2024 post-graduate internships included travel to Sierra Leone, management of a global conference and workshop in Africa, hosting two Optimistic Voices podcast episodes with medical professionals in an international context, preparing and presenting a major report on training outcomes, and developing curriculum for use in low resource and low literacy environments. Our 2023 Global Health intern managed logistics and generally helped coordinate HCW Rising Tides 2023 where participants presented and discussed their challenges and efforts to maintain continuity of care in resource poor Global South health systems. Immediately following the conference,“T” was hired by a member of the network they helped bring together.“In my second year of graduate school, I realized that all the research I had been doing was highly theoretical, which made me want to ﬁnd an internship that would allow me to gain practical experience in this ﬁeld.”- Jessie ZhuInterning with Helping Children Worldwide means you will be involved in world-changing projects, and you will be assigned primary responsibility for at least one project that will lead you into the career you are pursuing with real-world exposure, experience in management, and insight into the way modern nonproﬁts operate.HCW is committed to supporting young adults as they pursue knowledge in humanitarian aid ﬁelds, and we are excited to share that young people are increasingly getting involved in humanitarian work. Millennials are the most charitable age group in the US today, and Generation Z is highly motivated by a desire to help others and make a difference in the world. A recent Forbes magazine article states “Millennials and Gen-Z are reshaping philanthropy and ushering in a new era of giving. A report by payment app Zelle found that nearly 75% of Millennials provided ﬁnancial support to family, friends or nonproﬁts since the Covid-19 pandemic began — the highest rate among any generation polled.” They are intensely aware of the challenges facing their generation, such as climate change, poverty, and conﬂict. A Case Foundation study of “data and analysis created by a decade of study, actions, trends and behaviors have led to a general framework for understanding younger (1980 – 2000) constituents. Based on careful review of the data from the decade-long project, including data on the behaviors and preferences of more than 150,000 millennials, Case has identiﬁed 10 traits characterizing young people’s approaches to cause engagement:1. see all of their assets as equal, 2. are everyday changemakers3. believe in the power of activism4. care about social issues rather than institutions5. care about using their collective voice6. care about supporting others and the greater good more than ineffective partisan politicking7. engage through a range of sectors and industries, 8. by employing innovative approaches, 9. and through actions both big and small10. are largely inﬂuenced by their peers4 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONA DIFFERENT KIND OF INTERNSHIP:Helping Children Worldwide

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5www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org | Continued on page 10 Continued on page 10Jessie Zhu from Beijing, China, interned as she completed her Master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, in developmental psychology. She had previously completed a double Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and economics. Jessie’s research interests include studying parent-child relationships and understanding the effects of poverty on children’s education and developmental outcomes. “I am keenly aware of the impact economic constraints have on children. Childhood is a crucial period for rapid brain and body development. Unfortunately, many children who grow up in poverty experience maltreatment and lack access to high-quality medical care and education. This motivated me to pursue further education in developmental psychology, hoping to provide the support these children need.”Jessie designed curriculum for parents in low literacy environments, completing a design module to be deployed in the Firmly Rooted Family Series. She is passionate about continuing her work in this ﬁeld in the future, and interested in pursuing a Doctoral Degree in the subject matter of her internship.Helping Children Worldwide internships have evolved along with our philosophy changes about nature of empowerment and its impacts.About themKathleen Pfohl was the maternal Health mission intern with Helping Children Worldwide, pursuing a Masters degree in Global Health Policy at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health in Washington, DC. Through her internship program she was able to build upon her academic foundation in international conﬂict analysis and resolution, for which she obtained a bachelor’s degree from George Mason University with real world experience in managing diverse training team members and their logistics in a low-resource foreign country. she participated in the conference and training design, and related research and reporting on conference outcomes. As a full time manager of training coordination with the National Coalition of STD directors, she is actively involved in advancing public health initiatives. Her professional passion lies in addressing global health challenges, particularly in low and middle-income countries and conﬂict settings, with a special focus on reproductive and maternal health. Read more about Kathleen’s internship adventures on page 32 and listen to the podcast episodes she hosted while in Sierra Leone in January at https://www.buzzsprout.com/1997407/14595398.

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The world is waking up to the realization that institutional care of children in orphanages creates lifelong trauma. Research shows that separating children from families increases all risks of harm, including abuse, neglect, exploitation, and tracking. It undermines a child’s ability to process information correctly, form relationship bonds or resolve conﬂicts as adults. Consequently, child welfare organizations are not only transitioning from institutional models to family support models. They are joining the eort to make this shift a worldwide phenomenon. Those who have a demonstrated track record of safe and reasonable reintegrations and successfully transitioned to family care models are acting as technical experts to those seeking to change, coaching and mentoring the transition process. It’s not a simple process, either. It requires organizational change and leadership, stakeholder education and engagement, and skilled workers to perform child welfare and child protection services, and trained social workers for family stablization and trauma-informed care. It takes a great deal of courage and skill to safely transition children back into safe, loving and permanent family care, shift the material and human assets and encourage and retain high value stakeholders through the entire process. David Titus Musa is the Senior Consultant for the Child Reintegration Centre's Transition Coaching and Mentoring Department. He and Reintegration Specialist Rosamond Palmer help orphanages in Africa transition their model of care for children from residential to family-based care. The organizations across the Global South engaged in this important work often ﬁnd themselves working in isolation. Connecting them to other transition support experts from the Global South to sharpen and hone their skills and exchange ideas for best practices may be the best course of action for leaders in child welfare in the Global North. But, the ability to ﬁnd the funding and support to make these collaborations possible can be dicult. Like the work, it’s not a simple process, and we applaud all of our collegues who refuse to walk away from the networking, fundraising, and collaborations we need to make this shift global and permanent. By way of example, in March of 2024, David was invited to attend a training of trainers on tools developed by the Better Care Network, alongside 20 other transition practitioners from 11 dierent African countries, including Sierra Leone, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi and Kenya. These are his reﬂections. Dr. Laura Horvath Helping Children Worldwide7www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |The training was an intensive 3 days on the process of transition, transition assessment tool, and learning about managing cost and risk factors. Our session leaders included many well-known thought leaders in care reform, including Peter Kamau from Child in Family Focus, Simon Kanyembo of Alliance for Children Everywhere, and Beth Bradford, from Changing the Way We Care. I was able to make connections for further collaborations with transition experts from Lesotho, Kenya, Ghana and Zambia. I look forward to being able to connect again with many of these leaders at the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit in September, and again at Rising Tides in November this year, to continue to ﬁnd ways to work with and support one another. The sessions were ﬁlled with deep conversations and shared understanding of care reform systems in different country settings. We were given many opportunities to test the effectiveness of the tools, and to contextualize the tool, as (BCN training in Uganda) WRITTEN BYMr. David T. MusaChild Reintegration Centre.

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it had been developed from a global perspective, but must be adapted for each country’s context in order to be effective.From this training, I realize that as practitioners, we really need to understand how orphanages operate in our own countries, the goals that stakeholders had for establishing these institutions in the ﬁrst place, and the kind of ownership they have over them. It’s important to understand the needs of stakeholders because they can have a big impact on the strategies that we as transition support workers use to support their transitions. It’s also important that any transition take place within the context of wider systems reforms that include public commitment to scaling down orphanages and national minimum standards for the care of children laid out in laws and policies.Transition is possible, and necessary, but it requires buy-in from multiple stakeholders, and it takes time to do it safely and well. Sierra Leone is just at the start of the movement to change the way children are cared for - there are other countries such as Kenya and Rwanda making care 8 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONreform a national strategy - with support from their governments, but the Transition Coaching and Mentoring Department of the CRC is on the cutting edge, leading the charge in West Africa. The training I received in Uganda will enable me to train other transition coaches in Sierra Leone, so that transition and care reform can gain more ground in West Africa.Of course, the training was extremely helpful to me in my day-to-day work as the Senior Consultant of the Transition Coaching and Mentoring department at CRC, but the collaboration with others BCN-HCW-CRC Global partnerships that broaden impact and reach of transition support technical experts

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10 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONin my ﬁeld was priceless. Meeting different transition experts from different countries and organizations; with diverse perspectives and experiences allowed us to share insights and understand various challenges and solutions, enriching our collective knowledge base. Also, learning about best practices from different contexts helps in reﬁning strategies in our existing and future work and leads to the development of more effective and innovative approaches to transitioning.The beneﬁt of being able to collaborate with others engaged in transition work may be priceless, but the challenges and barriers to being able to gather are not without cost. Physical meetings - though most beneﬁcial, require travel, which is time consuming and costly. This is particularly challenging for experts working in Africa, which often struggle with limited resources and funding. In the global north, one way around that is to gather virtually, but access to technology and internet connectivity can be severely limited, especially in a country like Sierra Leone, where not even consistent power can be relied upon. Meeting across time zones is also challenging.The network we are establishing as transition experts can foster a supportive community where members can seek advice, share challenges, celebrate successes, and grow the reach and impact of transition work. But it will require support.Ensuring voices from the global south have a seat at the table POWER BALANCEFor many years, Helping Children Worldwide has engaged in conversations with other global leaders, sharing concerns about whether or not we had the appropriate representative voices in important dialogues about our work. When we come together with collegues to discuss the global approach to caring for orphans and vulnerable children, the realities of the family separation crisis, the impact of short-term missions, and transition of the care of children from institutions to families, child welfare and child protection, very often the people who need to be there are prevented from attending due to costs, logistics of travel, and access to remote meeting infrastructure.We all agree that while it is important for experts and academics to engage in these dialogues, it’s critically important that the voices from the ﬁeld be present in equal numbers. Those in the Global South engaged in the day to day work directly with vulnerable children and families are occassionally presented the opportunity to attend, but they need more opportunities to join these conversations and collaborations, and more importantly, to lead them. To that end, HCW is making a concerted effort this year to ensure that those leading the programs on the ground in Sierra Leone, have the opportunity and the space at the table for these important conversations. Beginning with the opportunity for The Child Reintegration Centre’s Senior Consultant in Transition Support, David Musa, to travel to Uganda for a 3-day training, David was able to engage not just in an important BCN Training (Continued)by David Musa, CRC Sierra LeoneTanatswa is a Master’s in Public Health candidate at George Washington University and holds a Bachelor’s in Biology from Old Dominion University.They describe their educational and career focus as “addressing and enhancing health systems nationally and globally.” Tanatswa’s role during 2023 was managing logistics for the Rising Tides Global Health Conference held in Washington, D.C. Tanatswa says they saw ﬁrsthand “how strategic interventions in education, healthcare, and community support can transform lives, especially in underprivileged areas like Sierra Leone. This aligns closely with my career goals of reducing health disparities and improving health systems on both community and global levels.”With expertise in project management, policy analysis, data interpretation, outomes monitoring and evaluation, Tanatswa put their skills in quantitative and qualitative research to good use in College Internships with HCW Tanatswa L. Sambana

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11www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |Critical Voices in Critical Spaces.HCW Rising TidesCAFO Summit To ﬁnd out more about how you can help someone from the global south attend this year’s Rising Tides, scan the QR code or go to helpingchildrenworldwide.orgtraining, but to meet with other transition experts from 11 countries, sharing best practices, expertise and challenges with one another. The rich conversations that happened during, after and even in between training sessions were as valuable as the training itself, and the CRC and HCW began wondering, how could we foster ongoing dialogue and connections between these technical experts?The Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit planned for September in Nashville, TN perhaps unknowingly gave us our next opportunity. For the ﬁrst time, CAFO is offering a Team Tuesday option, which will allow teams to have access to a room for a day for team building activities. This year, the CRC’s Case Management Supervisor, George Kulanda and TCM counterpart, David Musa will be making the trip to attend CAFO. We plan to hold a few HCW/CRC team building sessions, and invite other colleagues traveling to Nashville from the Global South, so that practitioners who aren’t normally afforded the opportunity to be in the same geographic location will have time and space to spend together sharing their ideas and experiences, and learning from one another.Likewise, HCW’s annual Rising Tides Conference will be a dramatically different affair this fall. A two day event planned for mid-November, Rising Tides will be a ‘by invitation only’ opportunity for leading experts in transition of institutions to family care models, to explore how to catalyze and grow this work in order to expand the impact. Familiar names from the global north will appear on the guest list, but HCW is also asking for sponsors to consider donating to scholarship technical experts in transition from the global south to travel to DC to attend the conference as well. Transition support can only grow in its accessibility and impact when the improvements are led by those who do it every single day. reviewing conference outcomes.As a result of their work at the conference, Tanatswa was offered a position, and is now a consultant at Christian Connections for International Health, where they manage data for the 30x30 project and conduct qualitative research for mid-term evaluations. As a Graduate Assistant at George Washington University’s SMHS Ofﬁce of Diversity and Inclusion,Tanatswa fosters an inclusive academic environment. “I emphasize the importance of collaboration and cultural sensitivity in humanitarian efforts. Successful initiatives require a deep understanding of their communities and a collaborative approach involving local leadership and stakeholders. The role of data in driving these efforts cannot be overstated—effective data acquisition, management, and analysis are crucial for monitoring and evaluating the impact of programs. The rewards of humanitarian work are profound; seeing the positive changes in communities and knowing you played a part in it is incredibly fulﬁlling.” - Tanatswa L. SambanaEmpower Global Voices At Rising Tides 2024Scan this QR code to visit the campaign page.

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HCW Presents!The amazing staff at Helping Children Worldwide don’t just sit quietly at their desks! They’re out in the world, sharing their knowledge, experience and expertise in a variety of ways:Yasmine (Yaz) was very busy talking midwifery during the ﬁrst half of 2024. Yasmine Vaughan and her Global Health Intern Kathleen Pfohl traveled to Sierra Leone with the TGH midwifery training team in January, Yaz traveled in February to Mexico for the International Midwifery Conference and presented a report about the Sierra Leone training collaboration at the Internation 12 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONICAR8 - July HCW team members, Dr. Laura Horvath and Yasmine Vaughan, along with virtual representation by our favorite researcher, Dr. Sarah Neville, presented ﬁndings from one of “Family Preservation and Strengthening Research and Practice in the Context of Care Reform in Sierra Leone” ICAR-8 ConferenceUSAID again turned to HCW’s Emmanuel Nabieu. This time on managing North-South Global Partnership.

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CAFO - September Invited to speak at Christian Alliance For Orphan’s annual summit again, HCW is showcasing our global allies and their work to reunify and strengthen families in Africa. Dr. Laura Horvath with David Musa and George Kulanda of the CRC, Emmanuel Nabieu and Dr. Melody Curtiss of HCW, Reegan Kabeira of Zoe Empowers, and Dr. Sarah Neville of Brown University. “Localization and Mutuality in Cross-Cultural Partnerships” CAFO Summit Innovate Local: “Bridging Research and Customized Solutions,” a CAFO Pre-Summit Intensive.”Shifting from Sponsorship to Family Advocacy”13www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |FLAC, FLORIS, CAFO & HIRF Ministry Presentations. Dr. Laura Horvath, Floris UMC - Dare to Encounter Jesus at Floris UMC - JanuaryDr. Laura Horvath , A Strong Family for Every Child at Floris Missions/Ministry ”Family is Love” Event - JanuaryDr. Laura Horvath with Emmanuel Nabieu - CRC Transition to the Christian Alliance for Orphans Care Transition Accelerator Academy - February Dr. Laura Horvath with Yasmine Vaughan - Why and How the CRC transitioned from Orphanage to Family Care - HIRF Board Presentation - May Dr. Laura Horvath Strong Family for Every Child and Strong Family Sunday - Florida Annual Conference Pre-conference Ministry Workshops - May

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15www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |THE WORLDWEWANTIn March, HCW had the privilege of attending a bittersweet event: the closing ceremony of the White Ribbon Alliance (WRA). The WRA, a global NGO dedicated to advocating for the rights of women and girls, was an associate member of the Together for Global Health Coalition and a longtime partner of the Compassionate Birth Network. This year they made the bold decision to close down their operations, step back, and elevate the voices of local actors who have been empowered through their work.The ceremony was a celebration of the incredible progress made by WRA and its partners. But what truly resonated was the sense of leadership and candor in the statements of the panelists. The entire panel was represented by members of the Global South, with the only Westerner being the panel moderator. One of the panelists shared that this was the ﬁrst time that she had ever been on a panel where that was the majority. Helping Children Worldwide’s mission is anchored to the precept that local ownership and control is essential to permanent, sustainable solutions to the problems we are trying to solve, child poverty and child mortality. The future of global development needs to be in the hands of local actors, and the WRA panelists shared honestly about the barriers they saw to realizing that future. Due to the vast economic disparity between high-income countries and local actors, true large-scale change can only be achieved through collaborative partnerships that leverage resources and expertise. However, the nature of what this partnership looks like has to change, otherwise the partnership itself is part of the power dynamic problem. One panelist put it this way: “We talk about partnership like we are Attending the White Ribbon Alliance Closing Ceremony.

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16 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONmaking a meal together. We ask local partners to help us cook the dinner. But when they arrive at the table, the food is already made and the table is already set. Their only options are to determine how much salt and pepper to add to the meal.” The panelists conveyed that it is the responsibility of international NGOs and bilateral organizations to listen ﬁrst and then journey together. Continuing the metaphor she said, “Maybe they don’t want to cook the meal with us, maybe they want to just sit and drink coffee.” It’s not just about what we do but the relationship to the people we do it with; we have to learn how to celebrate not just the progress, but the process as well. As they said, “The goal is not more diverse oppressive structures,” but asking the people that we serve what they want. The gap between macro-level development and micro-level work can only be ﬁlled by being transparent and giving others a seat at the table. Organizations that are doing this well know how to pass the microphone to others and elevate their voices.Phrases like “localization,” “decolonization,” and “bottom-up approach,” which are buzzwords in the global development and humanitarian community, were used, but one panel shared that no matter what term you use, it’s important to be aware of who is coining that phrase. If we are truly going to get to a place where local organizations take the lead, then we can’t also be the ones who determine what that leadership looks like.This is what HCW is working hard to do. For too long, solutions have been imposed from the outside, often failing to address the speciﬁc needs and realities of communities. The future demands a shift in power. Local actors, with their deep understanding of cultural nuances and on-the-ground challenges, are best positioned to drive sustainable progress. We believe that empowerment is not giving someone what they need. It’s helping them recognize what they have. It’s also sometimes getting out of the way so that they can step into the light. A key example of this came up this month in a conversation I had with the Mercy Hospital business manager. He reported to me that they have formed a drug review committee to ensure the safe and rational use of drugs provided by the hospital. This committee, composed of the Medical Doctor, Matron, surgical CHO, Pharmacist, HIV Counselor, “Real change, enduring change happens one step at a time.”― Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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17www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |Manager, HCW/SLAC Liaison, and Outreach Coordinator, will play a crucial role in ensuring the responsible and efﬁcient acquisition of medications. They will be responsible for monitoring the storage, sale, quantity, and quality of drugs offered by the hospital and setting the cost of the medication. By reviewing drug purchases, they can identify opportunities for cost savings, negotiate better pricing with suppliers, and prioritize essential medications for patient care. We did not ask them to do this, insist that they manage their drugs better, or even suggest that this could be a revenue-generating opportunity. They saw an opportunity to strengthen their ability to gain income from the pharmacy and decided on a solution for themselves. While this is a very mundane example, it represents a signiﬁcant step towards greater program ownership and improved hospital management. The Drug Purchasing Review Committee is a testament to the hospital’s commitment to responsible resource management and improved patient care. This initiative exempliﬁes our strategic anchor of empowering local leadership. By fostering a sense of ownership and providing the necessary support, we can work alongside our partners to create sustainable solutions for their needs. Our hope one day is to work ourselves out of a job, just like the WRA did.For the White Ribbon Alliance, this isn’t an ending, but a new chapter. Local advocates, once supported by WRA, are now ready to take center stage and continue the ﬁght. WRA’s decision, while unexpected, is a powerful testament to its commitment to fostering true, sustainable change. The world we want can be accomplished if we work together. This transformation is probably not cheaper. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it.The closing of WRA creates space for local leadership to ﬂourish, ensuring a future where women and girls have a stronger voice on the global stage. I left the ceremony feeling hopeful and inspired by the collective power for change. They gave each of us a white ribbon to take home, and every time I look at mine it is a reminder that the tides of global development are turning. I’m ﬁlled with hope as local leaders take center stage in global development, as it positions us to create a more equitable and responsive future, truly designed by the very communities it aims to serve.HCWs Anchor Statement

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Investments 21www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |Wondering What Impacts You Are Making in Transforming the World By Investing in Collaboration and Empowerment?Thank you for your generosity. There is no doubt that your decision to collaborate with Helping Children Worldwide and our allied organizations in the Global South and their programs and institutions is a legacy that endures and replicates. Your decision to invest in collaborations and empowerment strategies is not just transforming the lives of children, it is transforming the way the world works. Thank you for continuing to be be our champions of change!“You can’t set out to change the world if you aren’t prepared to change yourself. Dr. Carol McIntosh, M.D.So Something Else Could.I cannot believe how far we’ve come in such a short time. I did not expect to see these results so quickly.Mr. Rick Auman“Board of Directors Rick Auman 2023, 2024Frank Conteh - 2023, 2024Gene Murphy - 2023, 2024 Dr. Carol McIntosh - 2023, 2024Al Larson - 2023, 2024Mary Ann Gilkeson - 2023, 2024Rev. Gina Anderson-Cloud - 2024Rick Peterson - 2024Melody Curtiss, Ex Ocio 2023, 2024Craig Hiserman - 2023Board of Directors Rick Auman 2023, 2024Frank Conteh - 2023, 2024Gene Murphy - 2023, 2024 Dr. Carol McIntosh - 2023, 2024Al Larson - 2023, 2024Mary Ann Gilkeson - 2023, 2024Rev. Gina Anderson-Cloud - 2024Rick Peterson - 2024Melody Curtiss, Ex Ocio 2023, 2024Craig Hiserman - 2023“I joined this board to be a part of the change. Mr. Francis Conteh

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Mercy Hospital treated over 13,000 adult and child patients last year with improved services that are available nowhere else in the country, and provides care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. 8,000 vulnerable mothers, infants, and children receive medical outreach services in 45 impoverished communities through mobile clinic (Mercy Outreach) services. 200 malnourished babies are beneﬁing from nutrition services in rural Sierra Leone. Over 19 0 babies were delivered at Mercy Hospital. Midwifes and maternal health specialists from TGH members collaborated on good birth practices for tens of thousands of maternity and obstetric patients through the HCW Together for Global Health network.Our Together for Global Health coalition expanded, held an international conference in Washington, D.C. and provided systems improvement support for health services for children and families in 31 countries on three continents.2023 IMPACT AT A GLANCE22 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONAnnual ReportImpacts Transforming the World Through Collaboration and Empowerment 3 rural villages partnered with HCW, Mercy and CRC to create a family resiliency plan and network in their community, impacting 2,650 villagers. A network of international teachers collaborated on a teacher training curriculm to train 100 teacher and impact 3,500 students in Sierra Leone 20233,009 children 429 families80 orgs25 RCIs13,000hospitalpatients8,000villagers in45 underserved communities200 malnourished toddlers190 babies30,000+ maternitypatientsworldwide129 conferees 31 countries 3 continents3 villages2,650 villagers 1 Curriculum9 MasterTrainersThe Child Reintegration Centre served 1600 children in 429 families, and enriched the lives of an additional 1409 children as the TCM extended CRC’s work to 80 orgs and 25 residential care institutions (RCI) in Sierra Leone and 3 other countries, mentoring 8 in active transition, conducting 30 workshops and monthly televised events and overseeing the reintegration of 81 children.

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We have covered the Teachers’ Learning Collaborative (TLC) in past Empower magazine articles and Optimistic Voices podcast episodes. It is a new kind of mission project, born out of several years of annual service through short term mission (STM) by American teachers. Once upon a time, Helping Children Worldwide brought American teachers to the Child Rescue Centre, the UMC orphanage we supported in Sierra Leone. They would travel overseas to Africa from Virginia, Texas, and other locations after the school year ended to teach the children living in the orphanage basic reading, writing and math skills for two weeks of each summer. When the Child Rescue Centre transitioned to family care, all the children went home to families, and the program shifted to providing family care supports. There were no children living in residence to tutor, so our teacher mission trips had to change or end. They elected to change. Over the course of the past ﬁve years, the TLC has become one of the most positive mission activities undertaken by HCW volunteer teams, setting the stage for how STMs might look in a balanced power model. As a mission project, the TLC has spent every summer (minus one for COVID) bringing US and Sierra Leonean teachers together to collaboratively create a uniquely designed teacher training curriculum. The result is highly contextualized by Sierra Leonean master teachers to meet the speciﬁc needs of their colleagues. As the local teachers in the collaborative took the lead in crafting training modules they wish to share, the visiting And what has all of that got to do with us, you ask?teachers have found an even greater sense of accomplishment in the time they spend on the project. Last year, American teachers provided support to the master teachers to rehearse and reﬁne the curriculum. This year, the master teachers will provide professional teacher training to 25 of their colleagues, with American teacher missioners serving only as support and sounding board as they undertake the initial pilot of the training. The approach TLC takes has become the model we try to incorporate into every mission - one that has those on the ground leading the project, and those traveling a great distance to serve, serving on the sidelines and in the background, in supportive roles to local leadership. As proud as we are of the TLC as a mission project, this year marks another new chapter in the evolution of the TLC, as the fully empowered Sierra Leonean allies at the Child Reintegration Centre’s Education Support Department take the lead in determining how the TLC can evolve next to best serve the needs of the community’s teachers, schools and students, and what role, if any, they envision for future visiting teachers.As host and supervisor over the collaborative project, Mabel Mustapha, the head of the CRC’s education department, will be meeting with the educational leadership of UMC’s Sierra Leone Annual Conference, the Ministry of Education leadership in Bo, and the local master teachers, to determine their vision for the future. Localization is Serious Business: Taking an international Teachers’ Learning Collaborative to the next levelLocalizing and Contextualizing Missions for International Collaborators25www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |

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26 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONWe envision a world where every child is ﬂourishing. ENGAGE in CHANGEIt starts with strengthening families. We can’t control the assault of poverty on families in the global south. But, we can provide them with the skills that make them resilient and able to recover from crisis, we can ﬁrmly root children in strong families and give children the best chance to grow and thrive. Communities and famiies are inter-dependent. Families can recover from crisis if they have reliable networks to turn to in times of need, and communities can grow out of crisis if the families who live there contribute and care for one another. The simplest thing you can do costs very little and has the biggest impact. When you join our joyful community of Family Empowerment Advocates, you become part of that network of care. The number one factor that tears families apart and forces children to the streets or institutions in places like Sierra Leone is the impact of extreme poverty. It tears down natural systems of care and steals resiliency. Systems of care start with family and community networks. Having networks of care and knowledge of how to access them is foundational FAMILY EMPOWERMENT ADVOCACYFAMILY EMPOWERMENT ADVOCACYCHURCH PARTNERSHIP & MISSION DEPLOYMENT SUPPORT

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Become a Family Empowerment Advocate, start a Church Mission to engage in Empowerment through Church Partnership, or be a supporting congregation of Helping Children Worldwide. want your church to experience ministry in a way that enriches the world, and to be able to share joy and excitement about what new thing God is doing in their lives in a way that leads others through your doors.Today, we want to offer you an opportunity that may bring your church members joy in the short term and be transformational to their lives in the months and years ahead. Consider joining a team of churches that partner with Helping Children Worldwide to help create a healthier and happier future for vulnerable children, families, and impoverished communities. Our mission partners tell us that they initially joined this work to help the children, only to discover that God used the children to transform their lives. Their congregations became more loving, generous, and excited about how God works among them. Become a partner church or supporting congregation of HCW today at www.helpingchildrenworldwide.orgWe appreciate all our partner church pastors, mission/outreach directors, partner church representatives, and congregations. May God bless you as you have blessed others in His name.to being able to access food, shelter, clean water, and healthcare. These networks are the building blocks for education, economic enterprise, and progress.A Family Empowerment Advocate donation supports case managers, social workers and family advisors. Advocates support their work in placing children safely and permanently home, and get updates on progress of the case manager’s work with supported families, and become aware of how your choice to care has changed lives. The care team on the ground can teach parents the skills they need to become resilient; they trace family trees and return separated children to a safe, strong, reliable family, and grow the systems of care until the child is ﬁrmly rooted there. By ﬁrmly rooting families, we establish the foundation for vulnerable children and youth to become skilled, healthy, and connected community members. Through HCW’s ﬁrmly rooted family strengthening and capacity building for ﬁrmly rooted community systems, we are providing long-term solutions to overcome extreme poverty and achieve self-sufﬁciency.If you are a pastor, a mission and outreach leader, or an active church member, you Become a mission partner, join a long-term project team, or deploy overseas for a short work assignment to build capacity and work side-by-side with local staff.27www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |ENGAGE in CHANGE

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29www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |Scale up your impact by investing in an impoverished village to create a resilency network for the most vulnerable people in their community.ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENTYou can join Helping Children Worldwide’s Village Partnership Initiative with a short-term investment to partner with the partnership management team, a collaborative program of the UMC-SLAC Bo District. The Child Reintegration Centre and Mercy Hospital join with a leadership team from an impoverished community to identify the greatest issues faced by their village, and ﬁnd community supported solutions to the infrastructure, healthcare, eduation and family crisis needs. The lynchpin of village partnership is a community owned enterprise project to enable them to take local control and responsiblity for maintaining the agreed upon interventions. With a focus on strengthening families and communities, your investment as a village partner will help to underwrite a transformational intervention that begins and ends with community ownership, giving children and families the tools to bring their community out of crisis and overcome the ravages of extreme poverty, illiteracy, and endemic disease. Two of the three village partnership projects have completed initial family strengthening and reached the launch of their enterprise projects. The management team in Sierra Leone have identiﬁed another 12 villages that could start their three to ﬁve year journey today. You could join a village partner investment pool to launch the next project, or be a village partner as an individual, social service club, or church today.Visit www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org today and see how you can be one of our village strengthening champions.

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31www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |Come with us as we make new in-roads in approaches to our work of capacity building, leading to a time of letting go.CAPACITY BUILDING & LOCALIZATIONPartnerships that Build Local Leadership and Capacity in Education, Child Welfare, and Partnerships that Build Global Health Systems. Our entry into the ﬁght against maternal and child death began in partnership with the Sierra Leone Annual Confernence of the United Methodist Church. Together, we founded a hospital providing maternal & infant care regardless of ability to pay in an blighted urban region devastated by civil war and surrounded by rural villages where even traditional birth attendants were scarce. Delivery services for the impoverished were nonexistent, and babies and mothers were dying at an alarming rate. Our goal from the beginning was to build local capacity and establish control of the mission at Mercy Hospital in those closest to the need for crucial care that Mercy was intended to provide. In the process, we gained valuable experience regarding the challenges of sustainability for a charitable hospital in a low resource environment, where even the regularly and gainfully employed struggled to put more than one meal on the table each day. We became well-versed in the difﬁculties of managing responsiblities for innovative response and problem-solving in the context of a physically distant, cross-cultural global partnership between the North and South. Finding a way to balance power and authority and stay in your right lane becomes even more complex when babies are dying. But that is the only way that leaders will emerge who are empowered to develop permanent, consistent, and sustainable solutions for local health issues.Through joint efforts, the health system in Sierra Leone has made tremendous progress in reducing its maternal mortality rate. The country now has a lower maternal mortality rate than the West African region as a whole. Mission teams are deployed with the same regularity, and the need is just as intense as it ever was. But describing your vital role is not as simple anymore. Our goal is to do what is needed to turn everything over that can be turned over, with the care and speed that God ordains in order to be effective global allies. You have a part in this. What will you do?Train-the-trainer mission projects that do not start and end with the three weeks in Africa. Needs assessments and solutions development in tandem with local counterparts that progress year-after-year, more asking and listening, more sharing at home about what you learned, less directing and managing abroad. We intend to ask more of mission teams members, before and after the trip, because the part of the mission that should not end is the learning exchange, the relationship building, and the enrichment of souls through service. Every project is thoughtfully designed to be part of a multi-year effort that will come to an end; equal parts design, delivery, and hand-over, not the wash and repeat cycle of handouts and gifts. And we know this approach is better. We don’t have to look forward to the day when our allies point away from their own problems to a place where we can lead change together, or they can lead and we can follow. We are already there.The CRC’s TCM team meets with local institutions they are mentoring in Tonkolili District.

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Transformational Partnerships in Global Health32 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONWe celebrate that acheivement. However, the economy in Sierra Leone is in a downward spiral, and international supports are thinning. Sierra Leone’s maternal mortality is still 10 times higher than the target set by the sustainable development goals and their infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the world. What we do next is what will determine if the reductions in maternal death rates continue to grow or are erased over time.We believe the example of Mercy UMC Hospital’s successes and challenges are instrumental in charting future progress in Sierra Leone and our approach as allies with the Global South as they take the lead in the progress of global health. HCW’s generous donor funding has been instrumental in developing vital programs, equipping staff, and constructing a state-of-the-art medical facility with advanced equipment. This has allowed Mercy Hospital to signiﬁcantly improve the quality of care it provides to the community it serves. Training and trusting local medical leadership is having an impact on how Mercy UMC gains conﬁdence in its role.As HCW’s approach is increasingly pulled from lessons we have gleaned in our support of Mercy Hospital about the importance of local ownership and fostering problem-solving skills within the community, we see how that approach opens up avenues for greater impacts overall. As Mercy Hospital grows and establishes its own partnerships, HCW is gracefully transitioning oversight to the local health system and able to focus its resources on other areas within global health. We are already pivoting to greater efforts in strengthening child and maternal health systems on a broader scale. We’re leveraging the lessons of the past twenty years to forge transformative partnerships, expanding our impact beyond a single hospital and realigning our approah with the logic behind sustainable development

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Organization: Helping Children WorldwideCountry: Sierra LeoneIn Country Partner: Mercy HospitalMaternal Mortality: #17th Highest in the World3 Methods of Reducing Maternal Mortality• Funding to Mercy Hospital for Prenatal clinics both at the facility and on outreach• Supports OR and surgeon on call 24/7 for emergencies like C-Sections• Linkages to other organizations who do MCH work3 Challenges: 3 Ways to address challenges:Maintaining a sufﬁcient supply of blood in the facility to provide transfusions to women who hemorrhageIncrease blood donation by the communityEducation of healthcare workers to recognize problemsProviding opportunities for healthcare workers to access training and retrainingIncreasing access to healthcare for women who live in rural areasMercy ambulance to transport patients and Mercy outreach to treat them at home33www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |goal 17: Revitalize the Global Partnership. This is why we convened the Together for Global Health Coalition, increasing collective impacts through leveraging our strengths and knowledge to support other hospitals and clinics around the world. In January 2024, 6 members of this coalition collaborated to put on a 5-day Maternal and Child Health Conference at Njala University in Bo. Approximately 100 midwives, nurses, and CHOs from around the Bo district gathered together at the Paramedical School at Njala University to learn topics such as infant resuscitation, managing postpartum hemorrhage, assessing infants for high-risk conditions, and numerous other topics. The impact of this transformational partnership has been enormous. For the patients, more capable and conﬁdent midwives translates to better care for mothers and newborns, reducing complications and improving birth outcomes. Of the 94 participants, 83% passed their skills assessments and our assessments showed a 21% increase in their conﬁdence to perform these life-saving procedures. One midwife shared, “Thank God I was part of it. It is very relevant. This will help us to remember things that we have forgotten and that we need to know.” Consistent repetitive training, called “low dose, high frequency” in the medical community, helps the Ministry of Health and Sanitation establish standardized protocols and best practices for maternal and child health care, and this consistency ensures a higher quality of care delivery regardless of location. Altogether, this strengthens the capacity of the healthcare system to address maternal and child health needs. For us, this collaboration was vital to maximizing our impact, as each of the participating organizations leveraged their own connections and resources to provide support to make the training happen. Six organizations sent medical personnel for training and participation, and over 19 organizations shared trainers, training materials,

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A localized global effort 34 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITIONequipment, and the collective expertise and direct experience of experienced professionals who have implemented practices in the ﬁeld. This collaborative effort fostered a sense of community and shared purpose among all 25 participating organizations. What is even more exciting is the overall effect that this collaborative training initiative has created by generating a ripple effect, improving the quality of care for mothers and newborns, strengthening healthcare systems, and fostering a more collaborative and effective approach to maternal and child health in the region. This spirit of collaboration extends beyond speciﬁc projects. Attending conferences like the Good Birth Conference allows HCW and the TGH network to learn from and share best practices, celebrate each other’s successes, ﬁnd solutions to challenges, and potentially identify opportunities for future collaboration. Our participation in the Good Birth Network conference fostered deeper connections with Haitian maternal health organizations, and this strengthened network is opening doors for us to make a more signiﬁcant impact on child health in Haiti, truly living up to our mission of Helping Children Worldwide.This commitment to knowledge sharing extends beyond collaborating with other NGOs. We’re seeing a ripple effect as this same spirit is cascaded down to our local partners. For instance, during a recent conversation with the Matron at Mercy Hospital, she highlighted her dedication to continuous improvement. She has implemented a system of observing staff performing procedures, offering constructive feedback and correcting techniques – all to ensure the highest quality patient care. This is the exact approach presented by the diverse training corps of Sierra Leonean Master Teachers and visiting experts during the January maternal health training. Matron Agusta’s commitment to implementing a new approach to management means that she perceived value in the training presentation, the discussions, and suggested methodolgies that surpassed training on medical and midwifery techniques introduced in the instruction. Matron’s decision to introduce this new practice in her role as nursing supervisor to improve the nursing care at her hospital exempliﬁes the importance of HCW’s focus on global collaborations that acknowledge localized expertise and experience, and support two-way knowledge exchange. It demonstrates that this type of alliance can build stronger, more effective healthcare ecosystems from the ground up that can stand on their own. The ﬂourishing of Mercy Hospital and HCW’s expanding maternal health mission is a powerful testament to the transformative potential of collaboration grounded in mutual respect and a willingness to learn from each other. Over time, both entities have achieved their individual goals and emerged as stronger, more impactful organizations with better models of collaboration. HCW’s initial investment in building a foundation of care empowered Mercy Hospital, while the lessons learned there are now propelling HCW’s broader impact. Mercy has gained a sense of self-determination, a greater regional reputation and conﬁdence. The growing chain of impact year-over-year exempliﬁes the win-win nature of collaboration in global health.

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In January of this year, the Sierra Leone Coalition for Family Care began organizing. The coalition is comprised of four well-respected Sierra Leonean organizations who are known leaders in care reform for vulnerable children. Their combined expertise in child protection and child welfare is formidable. They are using their collective power to amplify educational efforts thoughout Sierra Leone on conditions and practices pertaining to family separation. The organizational participants have complementary backgrounds in trauma-informed social work, case management, family strengthening curriculum, and transition support services for orphanages seeking to transition to family care. They are all well acquainted with best practices in prevention of child trafﬁcking, accurate family tracing and safe reintegration of children into families. The four organizations are Child Reintegration Centre (Bo), Child and Family Permanency Services (Wellington), Princess Promise (Bo and Waterloo), and World Hope International (Freetown).The Coalition’s vision for the future is that all children in Sierra Leone are cared for in families. This would include an increase in support for family care options for children, in support for residential care organizations such as orphanages seeking to transition their mode, the development of national policies promoting care reform that prioritizes family care. It is the goal of the Coalition that there be a bridge between it and the government to allow for collaboration for the good of all children in the country. The SL Coalition for Family Care brings a great deal of collective strength to this work. All four organizations have strong, positive Sierra Leone’sCoalition for family Care 36 | EMPOWER MAGAZINE 2024 IMPACT EDITION

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placements for children separated from family care either until their own or a suitable long-term family placement can be identiﬁed, or as a long-term solution leading up to a domestic adoption into a Sierra Leonean family. The power of this Coalition exists in its Sierra Leonean leadership and contextuality, and the national reputations each member organization has earned, and the power of collaboration to expand the reach and broaden the impact of each individual org.working relationships with government ministries. All have highly qualiﬁed, hardworking and dedicated staff known for their integrity and commitment, and dedicated to the wellbeing of the children they serve and hope to serve. All are engaged in advocating for family care, actively engaged in strengthening vulnerable families, and engaged in robust family tracing and ethical and safe reintegration of children into families, as well as highly qualiﬁed ongoing case management of families to ensure permanency for children. The Coalition organization members each have qualiﬁed interim care for children while families are traced and assessed for placement.Between them the organizations provide a great deal of training expertise in various aspects of social work, attachment and trauma-informed care, transition of orphanages and various family strengthening curricula, including life skill, skills and microﬁnance training. It is their goal to assist government leaders with national child directives that prioritize family-based care for all children, and to offer training and resources to equip other agencies to engage in best practices for family-based care.While there is a great deal of focus on how the Coalition can work with and provide value to the various government ministries, including the development of policy, and workshops and training for other child welfare organizations and agencies, member orgs are also focused on how their collaboration can strengthen one another. Already, the four organizations are developing an effective referral pathway between coalition members and others working in child protection/welfare. They are collectively engaged in the collaborative development of rigorous/routine processes for referrals of children from government and police, including the standardization of forms, procedures and processes. This July, three of the coalition partners will be engage in a training to explore the development of robust foster care programs as an option for emergency and/or long-term family 37www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org |

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