We are thrilled to share that we are partnering with the Tim Tebow Foundation in the launch of a second Child Advocacy Center that will care for girls living on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The AGCI & the Tim Tebow Foundation House of Hope is the first home of its kind to serve this incredibly vulnerable population. The House of Hope will provide a safe place for girls to live, learn, and find true healing while the staff works to locate and, whenever possible, reunite these girls with family.
Tragically, there are over 600,000 orphaned or displaced children living on the streets of Ethiopia. Given the current political climate and the continued effects of the pandemic, this number is only expected to grow. Many of the young girls living on the streets in Addis Ababa have living biological family in rural areas but have migrated to the city as undocumented child laborers, trafficking victims, or fleeing regional conflict. Most families have no idea the dangers their daughters would face outside the home or how deeply the trauma they experienced outside of family care would impact them for years to come. The House of Hope will work to reconnect these families and provide the support, resources, and education to families and communities so that more children don’t enter this dangerous cycle.
“My foundation and I are excited to have been a part of bringing the House of Hope in Ethiopia to life alongside All God’s Children International,” said Tim Tebow, Founder and Chairman of the Tim Tebow Foundation. “We are honored to have been a catalyst that helped get to more lives faster and we can’t wait to see the impact we’ll have in the lives of the girls we are able to serve together as we share Faith, Hope and Love with them in their darkest hours.”
Together, through the House of Hope, over the next 3 years AGCI and the Tim Tebow Foundation will help 360 girls find healing from trauma and a path to family or independence. The goal isn’t just to help the one, but also the many. 1,800 community leaders will also receive the education and support they need to keep families together and 3,000 social workers and government officials will receive the trauma-informed training needed to prevent more children from living on the streets and develop new policies that intervene for thousands of children separated from family care. The House of Hope will be overseen by 20 highly trained local team members and is already impacting the lives of girls who recently came into care. The home will officially open in early 2022.
“We are so excited to be partnering with the Tim Tebow Foundation in the House of Hope,” said Hollen Frazier, President of AGCI. “This home will not only be transformative for the children and families we serve, it will completely change the level of care that these children, who are essentially forgotten by society, are able to receive. We feel so blessed by this partnership and our hope is that this model of home will spread throughout Ethiopia. These children have families who love them and have no idea the danger they are in. The House of Hope can be the bridge that gets kids back into families and helps facilitate the healing and the counseling so that they can all continue to stay together.”
