Our Mission

Our mission is to rescue homeless children from isolated outcasts and set them on the right path to become productive, fully integrated members of the society by placing them in family homes where their emotional, spiritual and physical needs are met while equipping them with education and marketable skills.

Our Vision

Our vision is to permanently transform the street/homeless children into ethical leaders who are physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually whole.

Our Values

Attacking the problem head-on: Molding the future today!

Our solution is based on a set of values that we all share with our children, the care team members (staff) and partners. We collectively affirm and enact the following set of values which ultimately direct and influence our value proposition or the positive change Umuryango wants to see take place.

Relationship with God:

Umuryango’s ultimate goal is to help each child develop a healthy relationship with God. We believe that children without relationship with God are useless to His kingdom and the society regardless of how highly educated they may be. It is only that relationship which inspires the best and effective use of their talents for the common good of the society.

Character Building:

We believe that character is taught and learned. We strive to be the right role models for our children by living what we teach them. The character and integrity of our children are nurtured to match their God-given potential and community needs so they can make a positive impact.

Education:

We value the uniqueness of each individual and gifts for the kingdom of God. We spend quality time with each child in order to discern his God given talents. This allows us to help him discover his purpose in life. Once a child discovers what he wants to be, we help him or her acquire necessary education and training to become successful.

Encouragement and guidance:

All of our children have been once abandoned, despised and left to live in loneliness. They have lacked role models and responsible Christian adults to encourage and guide them through life. We believe that each child needs and deserves encouragement and guidance in order to become a responsible adult. We meet this need by loving them, guiding them and encouraging them to go an extra mile.

Community integration:

Umuryango equips children become productive members of their community. To achieve this goal we actively build bridges between our children and the community and design programs with mutual benefits.

Meeting physical needs:

Most of our children have run away from their families trying to escape from their unmet physical needs. At Umuryango, we understand the fear and the needs that are tormenting these children. We feed them, we clothe them and we give them a safe home so they can feel like normal kids. We do not only provide what they need, we also strive to give them what they want as children.

Our Model

Umuryango has produced a conceptual framework that captures the essence of our guiding philosophy and the orientation of all our programs. These programs are conceptualized in a “Four Pillar Framework” which expresses the essence of our mission. The classification of a given project into one of the four categories depends more on the purpose rather than on activity itself.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS:

As they say: “It takes a village to raise a child”. Umuryango strongly agrees with the statement and we work hard to ensure that our initiatives are accepted and are supported by our neighbors, whom we see as partners. One way to enact this understanding is to implement community development programs which are designed to benefit our neighboring communities.

SELF-HELP PROGRAMS:

We believe that earned-income models such as micro-enterprises are the key to the long term sustainability of Umuryango. When it is more beneficial, we invest the donors’ money into income-generating projects instead of directly spending it on day-to-day operational expenses.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS:

Our educational programs are designed to equip our students with a variety of marketable skills that will enable them to earn a living or catch up to the standards of the main stream society. These programs include both formal schools that provide a path to earning a university degree or technical training schools that provide hands-on experience for a specific trade.

FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAMS:

Umuryango recognizes and well understands the struggles our children have been through. Despite an obvious transformation and progress they have made over the years under Umuryango’s care, our children are faced with a number of social, economic and spiritual challenges that are often uncommon to other society members. Some of those challenges include having no supportive social environment and no access to financial and job opportunities. Umuryango has developed special support programs to insure that the progress we have made with our children is not undermined by unfortunate circumstances they face when they transition back into the society.