Project HOPEFUL’s mission is to bring hope to overlooked children and vulnerable mothers around the world. They work in the United States and globally to support families and individuals fostering, adopting, or considering care for overlooked orphaned children. Project HOPEFUL believes adoption is a wonderful gift for children in many circumstances, but it isn’t always the best answer.
Therefore, they have developed a focused set of in-country care efforts in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Uganda and Ukraine to provide direct care and support to women, children and families who are without resources. Their goal is to bring the right educational, financial, spiritual, and emotional resources to bear where they can make the most impact for each overlooked child.
Project HOPEFUL believes in the value of each child – no matter where he or she lives or what diagnoses he or she may have.
Today Project HOPEFUL applies its resources to educating people across the globe and providing specific, direct care for children and mothers who have been historically “overlooked” – clearly “the least of these” as Jesus called them. To ensure that thier people and resources are invested as efficiently as possible, Project HOPEFUL focuses on education globally, direct care in four specific countries, and the following situations which have historically caused children to be overlooked: HIV; Down syndrome; sensory processing disorder; older children at risk for aging out; sibling groups; and children who have experienced emotional/physical trauma.
The Beginning
Project HOPEFUL’s roots are in the care of children who are HIV positive and the encouragement of families called to care for these children.
In 2007, while Kiel and Carolyn Twietmeyer were working to bring home three children from Ethiopia, they learned that one – the child who has HIV – would be required to wait many additional months for an extra immigration clearance. Struggling with this unnecessary legal hurdle spurred the Twietmeyers into action, and Project HOPEFUL was born.
Since that time in 2007, and in-part through the Twietmeyer’s work, the additional immigration requirements for persons who have HIV have been lifted, and much of the stigma surrounding the adoption of HIV positive children has been alleviated. Through its years of education and advocacy, Project HOPEFUL has helped hundreds of families – in big and small ways – to bring home children who have HIV.
After building Project HOPEFUL into a well-functioning, focused non-profit organization, they moved to Guatemala to focus on helping Project HOPEFUL develop and grow the Walk on Water Initiative.
After the adoption of two children who have Down syndrome the Twietmeyers spread their advocacy for children with an "extra" chromosome through education and Project TLC, a spirit-led effort of three mothers who adopted children with Down Syndrome from the same orphanage in Ukraine.
Programs
Walk on Water Initiative/ Guatemala: Walking on water upstream to prevent children from becoming orphans. Providing holistic care and community development through relationships, preventing the relinquishment of children to institutions due to poverty. Enabling families to stay intact, with a special focus on single mothers and children with special needs.
Child Sponsorship / Ethiopia, Uganda, and Guatemala: Sponsored children are children at risk for being overlooked for one of several different reasons – they may be close to aging out, they may have medical conditions that make adoption a lower likelihood, they may have a traumatic background, or they may have multiple siblings and a complex family situation. In any case, through your giving, you are providing your sponsor child access to necessities like food, clothing, clean water, medical care, and an education.
Hope + Sisterhood / Ethiopia and Uganda: Project Hopeful is passionate about sponsoring mothers because many of the women who are HIV positive are widows, either by death or abandonment. Without a hand-up, these women are unable to develop and sustain an independent life. Many will be confronted with the terrible, painful decision to give up their children for adoption if they can’t make ends meet. Through the sponsorship of mothers, a modest monthly amount allows these women to dig out of poverty, receive job-training, and maybe even start a business. For some, it will be the difference between giving up their children and being able to raise them successfully.
HIV Mentoring/ Ukraine: According to a recent report by UNICEF. Ukraine is the worst affected by the spread of HIV in all of Europe. 80% of all infected people are young. With the cooperation of Okmadet Hospital in Kyiv and the active supervision of Jim and Marianna Piepon of Ukraine Medical Outreach, the FIG Ukraine program was created. A $30 monthly sponsorships and donations to this program enable mentor Tanya to personally meet with newly diagnosed women, men, teens, and children. Her intervention brings health, hope, and healing. Her dedication to each individual coming through the hospital doors is actively changing the face of stigma in Ukraine.
Project TLC/ Ukraine: Project TLC is the Spirit-led effort of three mothers who adopted children with Down Syndrome from the same orphanage in Ukraine. After witnessing the magnitude of neglect and abuse happening in the orphanages, they were compelled to provide aid for the children they were forced to leave behind.
Mission Trips/ Uganda and Ethiopia: Project HOPEFUL is passionate about BRINGING HOPE to overlooked children and mothers around the world. They believe that hands on direct care benefits recipients and those providing care in ways that are hard to quantify or describe.
A donation to Project HOPEFUL will be used to educate, enourage, and enable families and individuals to advocate for and adopt children with HIV/AIDS and other of the most overlooked children for adoption. Donations can be directed to a particular program. For general information or questions please contact Project HOPEFUL.
