Amy Hathaway - Partner Spotlight

Amy is the Founder of Forever Angels, an organization in Tanzania that runs two separate projects.

The first is Forever Angels Baby Home, an interim care home providing emergency care to orphaned, abandoned, HIV positive and disabled babies who have no where else to go. They work with Social Welfare to find biological relatives where possible, or adoptive families if no relatives can be found.

The second is Maisha Matters, a community nutrition program which supports malnourished, orphan babies with weekly formula milk enabling them to stay at home with their relatives and thrive in their care. It is one solution to the orphan crisis which means orphaned babies can remain at home with their relatives and do not have to be placed in orphanages. They support the baby with milk and provide weekly training courses to the caregiver (on HIV, Malaria, Nutrition, Health and Hygiene, Child Development etc). They also support the caregiver to start a small business, empowering them to become independent and provide for their own families into the future.

In this blog, you will hear about how and why Amy founded her organization. She also shares her hopes for the future and a message for the DonorSee community.

Tell us a little bit about you. What inspired you personally to get involved with this work?

I watched footage of the Ethiopian famine on the News when I was 5 years old and I grew up knowing I wanted to help babies in Africa and that poverty should never be a reason for babies to be placed in orphanages.  I have 6 adopted children myself and I truly believe that all children deserve to be raised in a loving home. I moved to Tanzania as a Primary School Teacher when I was 21 years old, but after seeing  orphaned babies starving to death, I built Forever Angels.  Since 2006, Forever Angels has cared for over 420 babies and Maisha Matters has supported over 1,400 babies in the community with life saving nutrition and ensured they can remain at home with their relatives and never need to enter an institution.

Can you tell us a little about the work that Forever Angels does?

Forever Angels cares for orphaned and abandoned babies in Tanzania until a permanent family can be found for them.  We are an orphanage which does not believe in orphanages and 80% of the children who enter our care, are reunified with biological family or adopted into new families.

Our Maisha Matters program is a year long, holistic programme which starts with a malnourished orphaned baby and ends with an empowered family able to care for their family independently, now and into the future. We provide babies at risk of malnutrition with weekly formula milk; give weekly training workshops to their caregivers (usually the Aunt or Grandmother) in malaria prevention, nutrition, hygiene, water safety, child development etc and set them up in a business so they can provide for their own families.

What is one amazing project you fundraised for on DonorSee this year.

Our projects generally fall into two categories but I think they are both amazing.  The first is to pay for life saving milk for an orphaned baby - it literally saves lives and allows babies to grow up healthy and meet their potentials.

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The second is to set up small businesses for the caregivers of these babies - either the Aunt or Grandmother - this enables them to earn an income and provide for their families now and into the future. It ensures the babies we support continue to receive adequate nutrition as they grow.

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What are the key challenges you face?

Finances.

What are your hopes and dreams for next year?

To continue our work and to grow our Maisha Matters model to more areas of Tanzania.  It is a model with proven success and we would like to see it grow so more babies can be saved and more families, empowered.

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Do you have a message for the DonorSee community?

Thank you!  Your support literally saves lives of babies - those most vulnerable and innocent in our world - and it brings hope to families who are truly struggling, empowering them to make lasting change for their families.

If you want to stay up-to-date with the incredible work that Amy and her team are doing, you can can follow them on DonorSee here.