Bolingo Village has had our eye on ensuring each kiddo has access to the spiritual and emotional care that they need and deserve since we opened. To that end, we have a pastoral team and a trauma counselor.

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday, a day dedicated to supporting your favorite causes, and we hope we're one of yours!

This year, we're raising funds to provide welcome kits for new kids we will be welcoming home to Bolingo Village. We currently have space for 40 new kids!  We're thrilled to expand the Bolingo family and with your help we can ensure we have everything they need for their transition to their forever home.  

For more details on what your gift will provide, checkout the video below. 

We'll see you all tomorrow!!

I'll be honest, our foster moms don't have a ton of free time to spend doing their favorite hobbies. I'm sure any mom's reading this can attest to this reality. However, it's so important to us as employers that our residential staff members are as happy with us as possible. That includes ensuring that they have time for themselves to do some of their favorite things.

Yesterday marked the 20th observance of Orphan Sunday, a day where churches across the globe come together to benefit the world’s most vulnerable children. Together, we strive to defend the cause of the fatherless.

We all know the saying, "health is wealth." That reigns true for us at Global Orphan Foundation, especially when it comes to the kids who call Bolingo Village home. When we were planning to open Bolingo Village, we knew that implementing some form of consistent health care was a necessity. We just didn't know what it would look like exactly. Now, several years later, we feel like we've got a good handle on it. One component of our healthcare plan for these kids is monthly medical exams.

A few months ago, we announced that we were breaking ground on some new building projects in Bolingo Village. We're thrilled to tell you that this building phase is complete!! Here's what we built:

I’ll be honest - cooking in DRC can be a little tricky. Certainly much different than the cooking experience we have here in the U.S. It’s HOT in Congo, many don’t have access to electricity and appliances, and the culture surrounding cooking is simply different. Let’s explore what traditional cooking and cuisine are like in DRC!

Our goal with Bolingo Village has always been to care for the whole child. We're not just trying to house and feed the greatest number of children. That wouldn't be enough. We're trying to ensure that each child is happy. That we're helping them heal from their past traumas. That they're getting extra attention in areas that they need. Caring for the whole child means digging deeper than just a statistic because every child is so much more than that.

It’s no secret that we LOVE our foster moms. They’re part of what makes Bolingo Village work. They nurture and care for the kids like their own, help keep the village functioning properly, and liven the place up while doing it! So, we thought it would be fun to pay homage to these beautiful women who do so much. Enjoy!

One of Global Orphan Foundation’s first programs was a nutrition program that we executed in Congolese orphanages. Through this program, we met Plumpy’Nut and all of its life-saving capabilities.

If you follow Global Orphan Foundation on social media, I'm sure you recognize some of our kiddos and how they've grown. However, you've probably noticed that we don't post highly recognizable, close-up photos of our kids - specifically of their faces. Come to think of it - I bet you can't name the town that Bolingo Village is in, can you? What about one of our kid's names? You can't, can you? Those facts are by design. There are two reasons that we keep our kiddos' faces and many personal details under wraps: their privacy and protection.

What do you do if you need more laundry detergent? You pick up and go to the store, right? Unfortunately for us, it's not always that simple in Congo. Shopping seems like a mundane thing that would be relatively similar no matter where you are in the world but shopping in Congo can turn into a strenuous and frustrating process relatively quickly. Here are the realities of shopping in Congo:

By this point, you may have noticed that all of our children are younger; most of our kids are under ten years old. That's because Blingo Village tries to welcome new children that six years old or younger.

We do this for a couple of reasons:

1. To encourage family bonding.

2. To assist in overcoming trauma.

3. To reduce the likelihood of sexual abuse between our kids.

At the forefront of our farm plans has always been providing adequate nutrition for the children of Bolingo Village. Secondary to that is creating commerce, through an excess of crops. Through trial and error, hiring three new farmers, an irrigation system, and many strategic planning sessions, we think we’ve concocted an un-BEET-able equation for both an abundance of nutrition and potential for sustainable income.

Have you ever noticed that we don't generally use the terms, orphans or widows? Likely no, you haven't. It's a small detail that is easy to miss. Now, however, you're not going to be able to unsee it. Now, you'll notice that we often say 'orphaned child' or 'widowed woman.' Mostly, you'll see that we say 'kiddos' or 'foster moms' instead, and there are several reasons why.

Meet Papy, our head farmer at Bolingo Village. He is a hardworking sweetheart and has been with GOF since before the village was built. We sat down with Papy for an interview to get to know him better!

Do you ever have a made-up image in your head of what someone is going to look like?

On my most recent trip to DRC, the Chief of the area surrounding Bolingo Village called and asked to meet with me while I was in town.  I had never met him before or any other village chief, for that matter. Honestly, I was a little nervous because it's such an honor to meet with the Chief!

Ety is our DRC Country Director and the glue that keeps US staff and DRC staff together! He has worked with us since the beginning and we are incredibly lucky to have him on our team.

We sat down with Ety recently for him to share some of his thoughts with us.

There’s nothing better than seeing the Bolingo kids do some of their favorite things. Since we can’t all be in Congo, we’ve brought Bolingo to you!

Many children in the Democratic Republic of Congo are only able to eat starches due to a lack of resources available to them. This can be problematic considering the abundance of research that supports the need for animal protein as a critical asset to a child’s brain development and physical health. This lack of essential protein is a serious problem that impacts children all over the world but especially in the Congo.

Bolingo Village wasn’t intended to accept temporary placements. Still, last year, we made an exception for three siblings for three main reasons.

Have you heard the news?!

Bolingo Village is a big enterprise. Within the next few years, we will have 28 families living there. It’s a big job managing all of it and we’re thrilled to introduce you to our Bolingo Village Manager, Ruth Makendelo!

Program coordinator, Kayla Shanks, catches us up on what happened on her two week trip to Bolingo Village earlier this month!

I will never forget the moment I realized how fiercely our Bolingo Village foster moms love their kiddos...

The promise of Bolingo is to help all our kiddos become the best versions of themselves and prepare them to succeed in life. Access to quality education has to be a part of that. It is a commitment that we’ve made and will meet.

Once our kiddos come to us, they have it pretty good - that’s the point of Bolingo. It’s easy to forget that every single child in Bolingo has a story. They all have trauma and a heartbreaking life experience.