Our Approach
not your typical orphanage
We are thankful for God’s provision and our donors’ support along our journey to empower the most vulnerable children of Zimbabwe to not just survive, but thrive.
Kuda Vana is not your typical orphanage and these are the reasons why:
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Supporting vulnerable families and helping keep families intact through the Family Assistance Program, which provides seeds, food, and other support to impoverished families in two regions of Zimbabwe.
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Providing a safe, loving environment for vulnerable children. Kuda Vana partners closely with Zimbabwe Social Services and only accepts children who do not have relatives who can care for them.
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Nurturing the whole child through counseling, education, medical care and love within a “family unit” in four group homes and a nursery on our Children’s Home campus. Our staff receive annual trauma-informed training.
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Prioritizing safe family reunification, domestic adoption and foster care through our FAMily Program. In recent years we have adopted out 10 children, placed 7 in foster families and reunified 14 with biological family.
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Kuda Vana Children’s Home provides the best possible home for children who do not have other options.
what defines us
We are committed to maintaining a relatively small operation in order to provide the level of personal care every child deserves. Kuda Vana has been hailed as one of the best in the region, enjoying a visit by the First Lady of Zimbabwe in 2022.
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The children we serve come first. Always. We do for our few what we’d like to do for many. In this way, we can invest deeply in each child who comes to us in need of safety and love.
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Our goal is to place children in forever families through safe reunification, domestic adoption or foster care. In the meantime, we provide small, family-oriented homes where each child can grow and thrive physically, spiritually and emotionally.
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We proactively seek to heal the wounds vulnerable children in our care have experienced through group and individual therapy with an on-staff psychologist. Additionally, we provide our entire team with annual trauma-informed care training.
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We are committed to ensuring each young person in our care has the skills, confidence and support to become self-sufficient adults. This means we provide personalized, quality education from pre-school through college or trade school and often support the education of children we have placed back in family.
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We believe that Zimbabweans know the needs of their country's children the best. Our local leadership team runs operations, implements initiatives and develops overall strategy, while our stateside team works to secure resources.
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We introduce each child in our care to a Creator Who has designed them each with unique gifts and endowed them with intrinsic value. We respect each child’s choice of belief system, but desire that when they leave us they are well-acquainted with a Father in heaven Who will never harm or abandon them.
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“This place is different from other orphanages. I came here from somewhere else, in 2014. There, when you are 18 you are just done. There is no family. No help. At Kuda Vana, I know I have a family forever. I have to work hard, go to college, help myself, but they will always be there for me. I would like to be a doctor some day - to help others, with cancer, AIDS, the things that have hurt my country”