Hope Sparked started supporting Abbe’s education about five years ago. Take a look at her first student profile to see how far she’s come. She missed several years of education early in her life and struggles to catch up, but she’s now in secondary school and continues to attend school consistently. She lives together with
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Somolo Nzwambe Don is currently in 6th grade, his final year of primary school. His father died many years ago and Don lives with his mother, brother, and a large extended family. His mother has been supportive of his education, which isn’t always the case in areas where children trying to earn money on the
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Bibi has faced tremendous challenges but continues to work hard in school. She is starting her first year in a vocational sewing program that has led to successful employment opportunities for other Hope Sparked students. Bibi has had extreme health challenges, most recently with tuberculosis which was near fatal. She has moved around to several
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Umba is in her second year of secondary school, equivalent to 8th grade. She is the youngest of six children and the first to study past the second grade. Her father passed away some time ago and Umba lives with an older, married sister. Her mother lives with family or friends and attempts to make
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Olga is in her second year of high school and doing well. Her father has not been able to find work for several years her parents live together with extended family that are able to provide some support.
Hope Sparked operates in an area of Kinshasa called Mabulu, primarily with children from communities that are often called urban slums, shanty towns, or informal settlements. Residents generally have no formal property rights or services, but put together makeshift homes in areas no one else is willing to live. Hope Sparked’s mission is to provide
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Kulula Ndofulu Gédéon lives with his grandmother and aunts and is in his second year of secondary school (8th grade). With encouragement from our Hope Sparked team, he attends school regularly and reviews lessons through the tutoring program as you can seen in pictures from last year below.
As #GivingTuesday kicks off the season of giving, please consider supporting the education of a child in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) through Hope Sparked. Our annual fundraiser will run through Christmas to raise enough funds to support 14 students through this school year. If you’re not familiar with Hope Sparked, check out
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Our last student profile for the year is Umba Mutumbidi Sephora. She is the youngest of six children, and none of her siblings have been able to study past second grade. Their mother tries to earn money selling recycled products in the streets, but the family has never had enough to pay for school tuition. They
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Mobusa Pale Bibi is a very exciting young student who is thriving in school. She lives with her grandmother in Kinshasa because her parents are still in her home village. She was able to go to school for a while with support from a Catholic organization called Caritas; she is one of the only people
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Mwamba Katshindja Moïse is an inspiring young man who has overcome extreme obstacles. He is the youngest of three siblings who were thrown out into the street when he was about two years old. In many poorer communities, superstitious behaviors are commonplace and people often blame misfortune on witchcraft. All too often when that misfortune
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Esakabo Jonathan was never able to attend school until he was 12 years old. With support from Hope Sparked, he is now beginning his third year of recovery school in hopes of being prepared to enter secondary school. He works very hard, but has no father and gets little support from his family. You can
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Our first profile of the new school year is for Botomali Atiwana Jeannice. Our staff tells us she is always smiling, and all the pictures we have attest to that. This is her fourth year receiving support from Hope Sparked, and she has consistently done well in school. Her father has passed away and her
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For those new to Hope Sparked, as part of our summer fundraising campaign we will introduce you to a few students that are looking for a sponsor. These are students that we have helped get back into school, but need to secure a long-term commitment from someone to make sure they won’t have to stop
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It’s that time of year again. School is about to begin and we have one month to make sure we raise enough funds to get 25 students in school in Kinshasa. It’s been a rough few years in DRC dealing with political unrest from delayed elections, but we have an opportunity to provide a small
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Our next student profile is Mbedia Seraphi Enock. He is one of our newer students and we don’t have a lot of information about him yet. He just turned 12 years old, and finished first grade with help from Hope Sparked last year. Obviously he is behind and hoping to catch up. He lives with
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Our first student profile of the year is for Ayabo Pale Christine. She is a fantastic student and wonderful young women eager to improve her life. She is 14 years old and just finished primary school with help from Hope Sparked. She lives with her grandmother since her father died about eight years ago and
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The school year is just around the corner and we are officially kicking off our summer fundraising campaign. We have 25 returning students who are working hard to be ready for school in September, and we need to make sure we can keep them enrolled throughout the entire year. Our goal is to raise $8,000
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This is our last fundraising post of the year. We are grateful for your support and have raised enough to get all our returning students enrolled in their next grade. However, we are still about $2000 short of our goal to add 10 more students to the program. If you’ve been meaning to contribute to our
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We have a quick video update from Ruth, who is starting her third year of studies with Hope Sparked. As you can tell from the video, she is very shy. Her father and mother are both unable to provide for her, so she lives with her aunt who tries to make a living selling bread. There
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Here’s a video update from one of our youngest students, Ryan. He’s very nervous in front of the camera as you can tell. His is the older of two siblings living with his mother. His father has been gone for most of his life and has given up on trying to support the family. We
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After hearing several suggestions and requests from you, we are excited to announce the beginning of our sponsorship program. Through this program, recurring donors will have the opportunity to exchange correspondence and develop long-term relationships with specific students. Please check out the webpage for the details. On this new page, you’ll be able to see all the student
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Here’s a video update from Nevi. We introduced him in our first class of students, shortly after his mother had passed away a few years ago. His father has also passed away and he lives with his older siblings. As he mentions in the video, he would have no chance of continuing school without help
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About two years ago we introduced you to Siméon. He lives with his father who is a police officer, and was not able to consistently attend school until getting support from Hope Sparked. He is now beginning his sixth year of primary school. His family has previously discussed hopes that he could become a doctor,
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We’ve got a short profile today for Vero, one of our youngest students. She has finished her first year of primary school with help from Hope Sparked. Her father has been gone for several years, and she lives with her mother and older siblings. Two of her older sisters are single mothers, a very common
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Today’s student profile is for Nado, another wonderful young woman that has overcome many obstacles and made a successful transition into secondary school. Both of her parents are unemployed and she lives with her mother only, struggling with a very difficult family situation. You can see her humble gratitude and aspirations for a better life
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Today’s student profile is 13-year old Caro. She is another successful returning student and will be entering her second year of secondary school. She lives with four other siblings and her widowed mother who sells rice to provide for them. She hopes to learn sewing, which is a good way to enter the formal economy and
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Check out our new campaign on Google One Today. If you haven’t heard of it, One Today is a great app that makes it easy to donate to great projects one dollar at a time. It’s a fantastic way to see the many ways people are striving to improve the world and take a moment
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Our next student profile is for one of our most successful returning students, Molendeke Kethia. When we introduced you to her a year and a half ago, she was living with her father together with eight siblings and some of their children, and her mother had passed away some time ago. One of the pictures above
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We are excited to start our student profiles for the upcoming year! Every year, we try to introduce you to our students and tell you a little about their lives and their needs. Georgette asked each of the children to tell a little about themselves or their experience with Hope Sparked and got some great videos. All
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It’s time to kick off our annual summer fundraising campaign! Our goal is to raise $6000 to pay for tuition, school supplies, uniforms, and tutoring for 20 students for the 2016-2017 school year. Last year we raised enough to get 15 students enrolled throughout the year and we have several more in need of your support.
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Thanks to some wonderful students in Penn State Harrisburg’s Information Science and Technology program, Hope Sparked has a new website up a running. Please take a look around and share with your friends! We are looking forward to another great year and will be kicking off our 2016 Summer Fundraising Campaign in a few weeks. We
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Google has a great program called One Today that helps non-profit organizations fundraise. Once you install the app, it shares a organization a day that fits your interests and allows you the opportunity to donate $1 at a time to those you would like to support. It’s a great way to learn about the many
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We are happy to announce that six very talented individuals have agreed to serve on the Board of Directors for Hope Sparked. Please check out the new About Us page to take at look at their bios. We are excited to grow our team and organization as we strive to expand our impact where it’s
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Our last student profile from our first class of students is for 14 year-old Nancy. She was last able to attend school in fourth grade, and like many others spends much of her time crushing rocks to sell gravel. Please help us provide her an opportunity for an improved future. Visit our donate page to help support
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Our next student profile is for 10 year-old Rabbit. He is Ketia’s cousin, and has never been to school but dreams of working for the government. His lives with his father and extended family. Like Ketia and many others, he spends much of his time crushing rocks by hand to sell gravel. Please visit our donate page
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Our next student profile is 14 year-old Ketia. She lives with her father and eight children, without a mother. She has not been in school for three years and has been helping her father work to support their family. Two of her sisters already have children that live in the home as well. The picture
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Our next student profile is for 12 year-old Bob. His father is unemployed – not uncommon with unemployment somewhere around 50% in the country. His mother sells sugar cane to try to support their six children. Bob has not been able to attend school for three years. He hopes to find work as a driver
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Our next student profile is a 13 year old boy named Nevi. His mother died a month ago and he has never known his father. He hasn’t been able to go to school for the last three years. He hopes to finish school and become a mechanic. Please consider a donation to help keep him
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Thanks to your generous support, Ruth will be able to stay in school for the entire year! Our next student profile is for Simeon, a 13 year-old boy. His father is a police officer, but has not been able to pay for Simeon’s school for the last year. (Police officers in DRC often don’t get
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We will be posting profiles for our first class of students over the coming weeks. These ten children have just started classes with tentative financial arrangements, but need your support to stay in school all year. We are trying to raise $210 for each child. $155 will pay for registration and school fees for the
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