Two New Centers Help 100+ Orphaned Children

Things continue to progress with the two new community groups we plan to partner with! We have now successfully completed the 'Discovery Phase' with each of the groups, where we spent time going over what resources they already have in their 'arsenal,' that can be used and leveraged to help them become even more successful as they support OVC. For example, one of the groups pointed out that they have a member of their committee who is trained in paralegal studies. We pointed out that this was a huge resource as the caregivers who support the OVC by taking them in, often don't know what the OVC's legal rights are or what their rights are as a caregiver. Now this group will be able to have legal trainings from this caregiver to better equip their caregivers. 

Now that we know what kind of monetary, financial, and intangible resources these groups have, we are moving on to a 'Needs Assessment Phase,' during which we will be identifying what needs they have in each of the Seven Essential Services that we support groups in. The Seven Essential Services are areas that we, as Nehemiah's Restoration, deem crucial to a person's holistic wellness and when we work with a group, our goal is to ensure that each of the OVC that group supports receive some sort of support in all of these areas, to ensure that they are able to grow up to become successful, self-sustaining adults. The Seven Essential Services are Shelter & Care, Food & Nutrition, Economic Empowerment, Education, Psychosocial, Health & Well being, and Legal Support. For the next couple weeks, we will be developing a document that lists and prioritizes their needs in each of these areas so that we can better define how we will work with them in the future and how we can develop long term sustainability with these groups. During our trip in April, we will finalize these decisions with the groups and kick start our partnership!