The Global Orphan Project
The Global Orphan Project (GO Project, for short) is a 501(c)(3) global orphan care ministry headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. GO Project mobilizes local churches in some of the poorest areas on earth to care for orphaned and vulnerable children in their communities…children of last resort with no viable means of care. GO Project, which currently facilitates care for orphaned and abandoned children in 15 countries, started GO Threads to help support the children in GO Project homes and the surrounding communities, as well to create jobs and generate economic activity in these poverty-ridden areas. Learn more about GO Project at www.theglobalorphanproject.org.
GO Threads Concept
Where we serve, we’ve observed an oppressive triangle.
First, every time we help a local church bring an orphan into care, we create new demand for goods and services. For clothes, as an example.
Second, there are lots of local workers who could make quality clothes.
Third, the aid world often meets the new demand with more pure aid. For example, the kids wear donated and shipped second hand clothes from the U.S., while adults who could produce quality clothing remain unemployed, in the aid lines, and on the brink of orphaning their own children.
With a tweak in thinking, this great oppression represents great opportunity.
GO Threads is a special venture launched right in the heart of this triangle, to meet new demand via local production, rather than pure aid.
We start local sewing centers. The sewing centers hire local workers out of aid lines and into jobs. The local workers produce quality local clothing, including government mandated school uniforms. They produce clothing for the poorest children who cannot afford clothing and uniforms. And they produce clothing for customers who can afford to buy quality clothing. Profits generated by the sewing centers help sustain the costs of orphan care.
So how is all of this possible for orphans and poor children, who cannot afford to buy clothes? Well, that’s why YOU are so important to GO Threads. For these children, we rely on people who CAN afford clothes to do the buying.
$20 (fully tax deductible) is all it takes to send an order for a child’s outfit to a GO Threads sewing center. The clothes will be produced and given to a child who desperately needs them. They will be hand-sewn by a local tailor whose job allows her to provide for her family. And your $20 purchase will also leave a profit to provide care for orphaned and abandoned children.
In this unique partnership among you, GO Project, and the local workers, we need more of YOU to drive success. We need you to rally your circles $20 at a time.
Read on to see why we feel this is a better way to engage than sending our old stuff by downloading Send Less Stuff and More Purchase Orders (PDF)
Sewing Centers
GO Threads sewing centers are set up and run as small businesses. They employ local seamstresses who produce traditionally-styled children’s clothing based on their location. In addition to filling orders placed by donors, the centers also compete for sewing business in their local markets. Local sewing centers may also operate as vocational training centers for orphaned children nearing independent life as adults. We launched our first four centers in:
- Kabale, Uganda
- Gulu, Uganda
- Lira, Uganda
- Croix des Bouquets, Haiti
