911 Family
“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!“ Psalm 133:1
911 Family was created to meet the needs of vulnerable women and children through programs designed to restore them spirtually, emotionally, psychosocially, and in their work and education environments.
The Woman of His Dreams
The Woman of His Dreams is a Christ-centered micro-enterprise program designed to help at-risk women grow in their relationship with Christ while also preparing them to enter the workforce with their own micro-businesses. While our Christ-centered focus helps them guide into a loving relationship with Jesus, our professionally trained staff Psychologists meet with the families throughout the week, praying with them and assessing the families’ needs and progress in our program. Many women who have gone through our program are now confidently running their own businesses, while also enjoying the blessings of a closer walk with God.
The women have enjoyed courses such as:
- The Basics of Running a Business
- Professional Sewing (Medellin is one of the fashion centers of South America!)
- Professional Chef Skills
- Cake Making and Decorating
- Professional Makeup Application
- Professional Hairstyling
- Professional Hairbraiding
- Professional Children’s Hairstyling
- Christmas Crafts For Selling
- Balloon Decorations for Parties
- Paper Flower Design
- Jewelry-Making
- Bracelet Weaving
The 911 Youth Center
The 911 Youth Center provides essential tutoring in math and language, as well as spiritual care and extracurricular courses such as English, Art, Sports, Music, and more. Our program is open to children ages 6 – 13 years of age, with one group in the mornings and another in the afternoons. The testimonies from this program are truly amazing, as the children have grown socially, spiritually, and educationally.
- SOCIALLY: Those who were shy or who misbehaved are now active and productive members of class.
- SPIRITUALLY: The children from our center are now taking Jesus into their public schools! One teacher told us the 7-year-old girl from our center who is in her class now encourages all of the kids to give their troubles to God and pray to Him in a spontaneous and personal way!
- EDUCATIONALLY: We have seen children who entered unable to read, write, or do basic math who are now able to do all of those things with speed and agility!
We are committed to the needs of every individual who enters our program, satisfying them in the best way possible through home visits along with psychological and spiritual care. The most important thing is that 911 Life is a place where people can learn about the God of the universe, who loves them and cares about the details of their lives!
The Hope House
The Hope House is a full-time care program to rescue single mothers and their children who find themselves in highly vulnerable situations. Our goal is for these women and their children to graduate from our program empowered, healed, bilingual, up to date with their studies and ready to succeed!
The 911 Hope House Project will begin with full-time care for 8 mothers and their children in two of the four houses that make up the 911 Life missions base in Medellin, with the future goal of expanding to include homes in other cities. The families will receive crisis intervention, psychological and spiritual care, nutritional care and education, skills training, and more from professionally trained staff who will be available 24/7.
All school-aged children will benefit from a fully accredited Christian curriculum through 911 Hope Academy, a virtual school we are running in coordination with Academia Homeschool. In addition to all of the core subjects, students will enjoy arts, sports, music, English, tutoring, and other recreational activities provided by our teachers. They will also receive emotional and psychological assistance from our trained professionals.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Many local programs exist which separate at-risk children from their parents, placing the children in substitute homes while the mothers are often left in trauma and with little hope of ever getting their children back. While it is sometimes necessary to remove children from an unsafe situation, there are also many cases in which mothers simply need extra love, attention, psychological and spiritual care, job skills, etc. in order to get out of the dire situation in which they find themselves.
Our goal has always been to do everything possible to keep families together while providing the care and intervention needed, and in 2014 the dream to offer a full-time intervention program for both at-risk mothers and their children was born. While the women’s and children’s programs we’ve run over the years have had tremendous success, they have also helped prepare us to take the next step of creating the 911 Hope House!
HOW IT WORKS
- PHASE ONE: The families move from their crisis situation to the Hope House for a period of approximately 6 months, during which they receive 24-hour care, love, support, counseling, and other necessary services. The children enter our 911 Hope Academy and Youth Center.
- PHASE TWO: As the family heals, the mother enters jobs training in an area of interest, while continuing to receive the care and support needed. The children continue in the 911 Hope Academy and Youth Center. This phase lasts for up to 15 months.
- PHASE THREE: Between 21 and 24 months after entering the 911 Hope House Project, the families transition into living independently as the mother financially supports her family.