This page highlights pictures from projects supported by Acts of Grace within the most recent five years.
Society & Community
Photos are listed in alphabetical order by charity name. Click on the charity's name to be redirected to its website. Click on the Grant Description link to learn more about each grant. These pictures are used with the express permission of the organization that provided them and are not to be reproduced for any other purpose.
Erdenet Lifeskills Values Education Branch Furnishings & Equipment (Mongolia)
Grant Year: 2021
-
Over the next three years, Asian Outreach Mongolia plans to reach 1200 children with Lifeskills Programs in Erdenet. This initiative assists Mongolian children in developing good character and strengthens families through building understanding of good values in children. It also helps to benefit the wider Mongolian society through developing a generation of good citizens who will contribute to the development of their country and the establishment of a functioning and prosperous society. This project also allows AO Mongolia to supplement the Mongolian national education curriculum through providing ethics education.
-
Asian Outreach has purchased a building in Erdenet, Mongolia that it is renovating for its use to deliver Lifeskills Values Education programs in the area. This building has been successfully remodelled into offices and a classroom for AO Mongolia with >32 sq m of teaching space designed to accommodate 20 children and separate the office room next to the classroom for teachers. To finish preparing the building for effective use and ministry, Asian Outreach needs to purchase interior furnishings and equipment.
Pictured here: Ongoing renovations in the new Lifeskills Values Education Branch building in Erdenet, Mongolia.
-
The new building has been designed to create a welcoming and friendly atmosphere for students, parents and AO Mongolia staff. Once final furnishings and equipment have been installed, the building will be used to enhance, expand and support ongoing Lifeskills Values Education and other programs in Erdenet such as after school VBS-style programs to further the spiritual impact as well as parent-focused programs covering topics such as understanding children, age-specific development, parent-child communication, and other critical areas currently lacking in Mongolian families.
Community Training for Orphan Care - Social Worker (Zimbabwe)
Grant Year: 2021
-
One in four children in Zimbabwe has lost one or both parents. Many are cared for by a relative, but continue to experience hunger, poor health and deprivation. Others are abandoned and grow up in orphanages or child-headed households because their extended family members are desperately poor and unable to provide for even their basic needs. Bopoma Villages comes alongside caregivers to strengthen and equip them to provide homes and care for orphaned children. Bopoma Villages works with community volunteers to help families care for more than 450 orphaned children.
Pictured here: Kumbirai recently opened her heart and home to one more orphaned child!
-
Bopoma Villages provides temporary care for children who have become separated from their caregivers while the Bopoma team conducts extensive family tracing to reunite the children with family members. If this is not possible, Bopoma Villages works to place children in a loving family in the community. In order to meet the increasing needs of orphan care and to enhance the long-term sustainability of this work, Bopoma Villages will hire a social worker for a period of three years.
Pictured here: Bopoma Villages continues to search until a family is found for every orphaned child.
-
Over the three-year period, the social worker will directly support the ongoing orphan care work and train community and church volunteers in a comprehensive range of support services to meet the ongoing needs of orphaned children and their caregivers. The addition of a social worker will not only enhance, expand and increase the long-term sustainability of Bopoma Villages' orphan care work but also increase the long-term capacity and sustainability of individuals, families, communities and churches in rural Zimbabwe to care for orphans.
Pictured here: Bopoma Villages works closely with village volunteers to strengthen families caring for orphans.
-
Medellín, Colombia is a city dominated by drug culture and organized crime. The community of Guayubal is particularly a centre of local drug trafficking, abuse, violence, sexual abuse, prostitution and poverty. In this neighbourhood, more than 1/3 of homes face food insecurity and many families are led by single mothers who struggle to find sufficient employment especially because children ages 5-12 are only in school for 1/2 days. In this area, many children are left to roam the streets when not in school, leaving them particularly vulnerable to malnutrition, sexual abuse, violence, poor academic performance, mental health problems, and spiritual poverty.
Pictured here: After-school care centres run by Tiempo de Paz are a place of refuge for children ages 5-12.
-
Hope Story seeks to help vulnerable children access education, health, and discipleship in strong communities through their local church. In Medellín, Hope Story partners with Tiempo de Paz (TdP), which operates as an extension of local churches in the city. TdP currently operates two after-school care centres in the city and will open a third centre in Guayubal later this year. These centres offer the opportunity for children to enter into a safe, protective and loving environment during the four hours each day they are out of the classroom. In the centres, children will receive 2 daily meals, tutoring and help with school homework, music classes, psychological support, recreational activities such as dance and sports, lessons on how to prevent sexual abuse and Bible based teaching and discipleship activities.
Pictured here: A child receives music lessons at a TdP after-school care centre.
-
With their children in attendance at these centres, single mothers will be able to find additional employment. The centre will offer parents training in the areas of role management, healthy boundaries, and vocational skills to increase employability. This new centre will also run community programs, including sexual abuse prevention programs in nearby schools as well as periodic food distributions and support programs. The Centre will support 50 families, impacting more than 250 beneficiaries with the hopeful anticipation of long-term transformation of this community and ultimately the entire city of Medellín. This grant provides funds for the initial start-up and operating costs for the first year of the new after-school care centre.
Pictured here: TdP after-school care centres welcome children into a safe, supportive and loving environment when they are not in school.
New Windows and Doors for Restorations' First Residence (Canada)
Grant Year: 2019
-
Canadian survivors, law enforcement and social services emphasize the need for long-term residential support for victims of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Without safe housing, it is difficult to provide supports that aid in recovery from trauma. The Alliance Against Modern Slavery’s Incidence of Human Trafficking in Ontario report (2014) identifies “lack of housing options” as the second highest challenge in assisting victims. The report emphasizes the need for residential programs that address the unique needs and challenges of survivors and are safe and secure. Restorations is a faith-based charity focused on meeting this need through holistic residential recovery programs for victims of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation with the purpose of establishing a foundation for recovery, healing, empowerment and success.
-
In partnership with the Central District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Restorations is renovating a house in Burlington, Ontario that will become its first residence providing safe, stable and supportive housing for survivors of trafficking. Restorations will offer wrap-around services to residents to restore physical, spiritual and mental well-being and to empower individuals to step into their life’s purpose. These services will promote healing, wholeness, independence and family reunification through offerings such as trauma-informed therapy, life skills growth, educational development, job training, mentorship, and spiritual encouragement.
To read an article about the renovations at Restorations' first residence and to see a brief video of the home, click here.
-
As part of the renovations, all of the windows and doors of the house must be replaced before residents and staff can move in. Existing doors and windows in the house are either broken or insufficient for providing a safe living environment for those escaping trauma. This project will provide all of the new windows and exteriors doors for the residence to increase the security and safety of the house reinforcing the truth that God makes all individuals perfectly and purposefully with the right to live free from exploitation and abuse.
