By now we hope you’ve heard all about Bolingo Village (opening this March!). We’ve shared our excitement with you at every step of the planning process – and today we want to share some differences between traditional Congolese orphanages and our foster care village model.

The idea for Global Orphan Foundation came to our founder, Michele Jackson, through her work with an organization that researched causes of exploitation and trafficking of women and children. She was driven to discover how they got into that situation; the answer was rooted in their families and past experiences, mostly due to poverty. Many of these women and children were forced into exploitation after coming out of orphanages homeless, hopeless, and without a path to independence.