Hope and Homes for Children
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| charity | |
| Founded | 1994 |
| Headquarters | East Clyffe, Salisbury, Wiltshire |
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Area served
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Central and Eastern Europe, Africa |
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Key people
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Mark Waddington, Chief Executive |
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Number of employees
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40 UK staff |
| Website | http://www.hopeandhomes.org |
Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) is a British registered charity working with children, their families and communities across 8 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Africa. to help children grow up in safe and productive environments. The charity moves children out of institutions into family-based care, helps keep together families who are at risk of breakdown due to the pressures of poverty, disease or conflict and works to prevent child abandonment.
Hope and Homes for Children was established by Mark Cook, a retired colonel, and his wife Caroline. The first project was an orphanage in Croatia, in a town called Lipik. Initially he repaired war damaged orphanages before realising that what children really required was a family. Hope and Homes for children then began to pioneer the deinstitutionalisation of orphanages and children's homes They have now closed 52 institutions in nine countries, prevented around 20,000 children entering or re-entering institutions and have been key players in changing childcare systems.
The charity's stated mission is “to give hope to the poorest children in the world – those who are orphaned, abandoned or vulnerable – by enabling them to grow up within the love of a family and the security of a home, so that they can fulfil their potential”. They do this by keeping families together and avoiding separation. They also aim to reunite children with families by closing institutions, where this is not possible they set up alternative family care arrangements such as adoption, fostering and small family homes. The model of deinstitutionaliation that they have developed has been recognised as best practice by Unicef and World Health Organisation Hope and Homes for Children work in 6 countries in Eastern Europe and 2 in Africa
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