Grant Applicant: Hope Shines, Inc.

The feature below is brought to you by Hope Shines, Inc, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about all of our giving initiatives, please click here. 

To learn more about Hope Shines, please visit their website: here.

Hope Shines in the Children of Rwanda.

Hope Shines is all about providing hope to the most vulnerable children and letting them shine daily as they reach their greatest potential. Our founder saw beauty in Rwanda and in some of the most high-risk and vulnerable children walking the streets, and now we are here loving and supporting a beautiful country with beautiful souls.

Our organization is organic and we operate lean with a holistic approach to youth development. Our programs serve to build up the child mentally, support their most basic needs for their education and personal health, and to offer wrap-around support to the families who care for the children.

Operating with measurable success since 2007, Hope Shines is intentional and efficient in taking a deserving child into our platform and organically equipping them with the skills and tools, mental and physical, to be a success in life, whatever that means for them. The love and mentorship umbrella strengthens the child and gives them the confidence needed to achieve more than they ever thought possible given their circumstances in life.

In all we do, we stay the course as it relates to our mission of enhancing and improving the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in Rwanda. We are consistent in our approach and foundationally strong as we always stay centered on our values of Integrity, Sustainability, Commitment to Children, Healthy Living, and Impact.

To see beautiful is subjective to most, even in a world where our unique cultures can heavily influence what is “beautiful” and what is not. Beauty can be something we visually see as in “that is beautiful to look at” or it can be something experienced within such as “she has a beautiful, pure heart and it makes me happy.” In some cases, one could say “that car runs beautifully” meaning it operates at optimal performance. But regardless of how you look at it, seeing beautiful is about something good and being able to see beautiful in the challenging type of work Hope Shines does allows us to remain passionate and hopeful for improving lives one at a time.

...seeing beautiful is about something good...

At Hope Shines, to do what we do, we must see beautiful. To us, beauty is in each of us no matter what outside influences in the world say about us. In Rwanda, those children who struggle to find hope have found ways to see beauty whether they know it or not. This is done to survive and make it to the next day. Without trying to see the good, hope is lost for many.

Hope Shines provides a platform that not only helps the hopeless survive but it also allows them to thrive.

Surviving isn’t enough when we see each child as a thing of beauty…a beautiful soul that had no say in what social class they were born into or what country or to what parents. We asked, why can one person be born and raised with love and opportunity and yet another be born within toxic environments that lack care and love, which is at the root of a strong upbringing?

Unfortunately, this is a reality of this world and because of this, Hope Shines works to pull out that inner beauty and nourish it in ways that give a boy or girl hope that one day they will break from the cycle of poverty and start a new chapter of love for their children. We never give up on a child and this is due to the constant reminder that we are all beautiful in amazing ways.

Seeing beauty is something to strive for in our opinion.

Hope Shines as an organization is managed by people who are grounded in passion and also see beautiful in each and every one of the children that we support and the families who care for them. When we see a child become less shy and come out of their shell, we know it’s confidence and love that we see; it’s a thing of beauty when that happens. That confidence comes from consistent mentorship and love offered in all our programs and it becomes the backbone for a child to reach their potential.

When we see beautiful and we have a structure and platform in place to cultivate that beauty in the children we serve, there is no doubt that our efforts will be supported and our reach will become greater.

We see beauty in our design and our abilities to strategically implement projects and programs that are currently literally transforming the lives of those who sometimes wake up doubting there is hope in the world for them. Our challenges influence our programmatic elements but our ability to see beautiful will always sustain our dreams of helping our brothers and sisters in this life!

Through beauty, hope is shining in Rwanda.

Written by:

Dan Gladden, Executive Director of Hope Shines