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FAMILY EMPOWERMENT ADVOCACYEVERY CHILD DESERVES TO GROW UP IN A FAMILY: Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, consistently ranked at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index. As families struggle to stay together, it is estimated that 20,000 children have ended up on the streets. These children are separated from their families by the terrible toll of extreme poverty: neglect, abuse, and lack of basic provision. Most unaccompanied minors are not orphans at all. Poverty, not death, is the number one reason children are separated from families in Sierra Leone. EMPOWERING FAMILIES IS THE BEST WAY TO HELP THEM REMAIN INTACT: Family empowerment restores dignity and responsibility, providing families with a pathway to success. As the Child Reintegration Centre reunites orphaned and abandoned children with families, they are helping the families become stable by providing them with mentoring, skills training, parent education, case management, and support for education and health care. Extremely vulnerable and foster families receive material support to help them provide for their children. In addition, families are offered a pathway to self-sufciency and an end to dependency on handouts.In Sierra Leone, families on the low end of the economic spectrum generally provide for themselves through some combination of subsistence farming and street selling, often living on the edge of survival. To help these families ourish, the CRC gives parents the opportunity to enroll in a micronance program to learn small business and money management skills. Graduates receive a small loan to start or expand a small business. Acquiring these skills can truly help a family break out of the cycle of dysfunction and illiteracy that mires families in extreme poverty. WHAT CAN EMPOWERMENT ADVOCATES ACHIEVE? Together, we will change the entire outlook for the families and children living in extreme poverty. Eventually, we can ensure the end of the Orphan and Family Separation Crisis in Sierra Leone. You can help a vulnerable family become stable and self-sufcient. You can support their empowerment with your donations. You can become an empowerment advocate. See reverse to learn how you can commit to Family Empowerment Advocacy. 52% of Sierra Leonean children wind up in orphanages due to poverty. *Hope and Homes Report 2021 52% of Sierra Leonean families live on less than $1.90 a day.*UNDP: Human Development ReportVisit us online at www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org/family-reintegration or call 703-793-9521Why empower a vulnerable family in Sierra Leone? Sierra LeonePoverty, not death, is the #1 reason children are separated from their parents.
How to empower a familyTo learn more about Family Empowerment Advocacy, visit us online atwww.helpingchildrenworldwide.org/family-reintegration or call 703-793-9521Help a vulnerable family move past dependency. Your tax deductible contribution as a HCW Family Empowerment Advocate helps vulnerable families become stable and enabled, so children can achieve their God-given potential. For $35, $50 or $75 per month, you can partner with HCW to advocate on behalf of enrolled families, ensuring that they will be engaged, equipped, and enabled with the assistance they need, and empowered to care so that their children receive a good education and health care. You can recruit and join with other people to form an advocacy team, nding unique ways to advocate, fundraise or show support.Family Empowerment Advocacy is not a sponsorship program. It is a partnership with HCW to advocate on behalf of people born into conditions of extreme poverty, support programs tailored to their needs and tools to succeed. You contribute at a level within your budget. Professionally trained social workers at the CRC determine eligibilty and services a family should recieve independent of the level of support of any one advocate. The only link to the support by HCW or the number of advocates who contribute is the number of families the CRC can enroll in services.You will get annual updates about the families. You can identify a family of interest to learn about and send letters of encouragement during the year. Your words of encouragement let them know that someone cares about them, cares about their struggles and wants them to succeed. You can travel to Sierra Leone and meet them and share a meal together.How to commit to Family Empowerment Advocacy:• Select the family you would like to learn more about.• Fill out the commitment card and choose your level of support.• Return to an HCW represenative or mail in using return envelope.• Donations can be paid via check, credit card or debit card.Family Empowerment Advocacy is transforming livesSince 2000, the Child Reintegration Centre has offered life-changing programs to hundreds of children who struggle to survive in desperate situations of poverty and neglect in Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world. Today, the Child Reintegration Centre continues to identify children and families who are extremely vulnerable, and partners with in-country organizations to help them break free from the cycle of generational poverty and illiteracy. Your Family Empowerment Advocacy packet includes: • Family prole• Commitment card• Letter writing guidelines• Letter template & return envelope• Order card for “52%” FEA gear