Bridges Of Hope Network Of Development Agencies
Bridges of Hope
Invest in people.
To increase resilience & reduce vulnerability to poverty.
Beyond charity
Nearly half a billion people living in extreme poverty will rely on charity forever. Charity does not work when it creates dependency.
Poverty keeps families from school, health care and a fair start.
Perhaps you have given before and wondered whether it made a lasting difference.
No one should have to depend on others forever to survive.
So, we unleashed the power of opportunity for people to transform their own lives, to move beyond charity.
local leaders
Your guide
We believe people want to be self-sufficient.
People should have an effective partner they can trust to create opportunities to transform their lives and communities. That is the role Bridges of Hope has carried since 2003.
Imagine a different future
Beyond charity. Beyond poverty.
Charity as usual keeps people waiting for the next gift, and dependency grows quietly, one handout at a time. We believe in a different ending: the day a mother no longer needs help, because she has become the one who gives it.
becomes a benefactor
The girl who once received a school uniform grows up to pay a teacher’s wage. The family that once received food now feeds its neighbours.
can care for themselves
Skills, health and education let a mother and father provide for their own children, with their heads held high.
becomes a livelihood
A small loan becomes a tailor’s shop or a market stall. The loan is repaid, and it lifts the next family.
This is already happening. Through Hope Enterprises, our economic development programs, Bridges of Hope works in Burkina Faso with our microfinance partner ACFIME, in a wider network of partners that includes Kiva. Together, more than 14,000 entrepreneurs have received a loan to start or grow a business, nearly 9 in 10 of them women, with a repayment rate of 99.97%. Thousands of microcredits are freeing families from poverty. Meet ACFIME See Hope Enterprises
That is the moment we move beyond charity. When one family takes that step, its children inherit a different story. When a whole community takes it, a thousand generations inherit a different future. That is how we move beyond poverty.
Every Bridges of Hope program exists for one purpose, our mission: To promote poverty relief and community empowerment among the poorest nations of the earth.
Your next step
Here is how we can do it together.
Choose an opportunity.
Find a project that matches your interests and learn more about what they do.
Our ProjectsDonate with confidence and ease.
Give to your favourite project and create the change you want to see in the world.
DonateGet involved.
Tell us how you would like to help, and we will connect you with a project.
Get involvedHealthy Child Africa
Million Meals Campaign
For just 27 cents, you can provide a nutritious meal that fuels their future and strengthens entire communities.
Sponsorship Program
When you sponsor a child, you give them, and their community, the foundation to build a better life.
Education Scholarship
Access to education for children in Burkina Faso by covering school fees and supplies.
Where we work
From Lethbridge to the world.
Our home is southern Alberta. From here, bridges of support reach communities across Africa, Asia and the Americas.
Our flagship · Healthy Child Africa
The Boura campus, Burkina Faso.
Our campus at Boura cares for children from birth to graduation: an orphanage, a clinic and maternity clinic, and a school from grade 1 to 9.
Sponsorship is $40 a month and supports each sponsored child and the child’s community with safe water, health care, education and microloans.
School life at SDK Primary School, Burkina Faso.
Around the world
Our work, in pictures.
From Boura to Bolivia, these are the people and places your generosity reaches.
Here in Canada
Rooted in southern Alberta.
Bridges of Hope is based in Lethbridge. Alongside our work abroad, our programs serve youth, families and communities close to home.
Youth One
A youth and family centre offering mentorship, meals and out-of-school programs for ages 11 to 18, at no cost to families.
Learn moreEpic Food Pantry
A community food pantry open the 2nd and 4th Friday of each month, 9 AM to noon, at 405 Main Street.
Learn moreTehillah YQL
A monthly gathering for worship, prayer and teaching that brings churches together, with a Discipleship Training School on Tuesday evenings.
Learn moreOne Hope Youth Outreach
A welcoming place for youth aged 12 to 18 to grow in hope, faith and purpose, with Bible study, retreats and the Words2Life reading challenge. Its youth also raise funds for food and education projects in Burkina Faso.
Learn moreEpic Youth Services
Counselling, life-skills workshops and community outreach that help young people through the challenges of adolescence and into school or work.
Learn moreThe 1 Million Meals Hunger Solution
Poverty may always be with us. Hunger does not have to be.
Every 27¢ you give counts as one meal toward one million. Churches, schools, kids and birthdays: everyone can fill a bowl.
What your giving makes possible
One network. Results you can check.
Bridges of Hope programs are carried out with trusted partners who measure and publish their own results. Every figure below links to its source, so you can see it for yourself.
Burkina Faso · our flagship partners
Around the world and at home
Figures are the partners’ own totals across all their funders, shown to describe the work Bridges of Hope stands behind. They are not amounts funded by Bridges of Hope alone.
Together, we go further
People want to be self-sufficient.
We believe people should have an effective partner they can trust to create opportunities to transform their lives and communities.
Stories from our partners
Real people. Real change.
Every program is led by people who know their communities. Here are three of them.
A clinic born from loss.
Sophie Osaya lost seven siblings to treatable diseases such as malaria and measles. From Lethbridge, she set out to build a clinic in her home region of Busia. The Salama Community Medical Centre opened in January 2023 with seven medical staff, a pharmacy, ultrasound and a maternity suite.
Lethbridge HeraldA woman of head and heart.
Mama Charity founded her orphanage in Lomé in 2003 and is raising 168 children. With help through Hand in Hand With African Women, she bought farmland and opened an eight-classroom school in Ghana in 2021.
Hand in Hand“Now, I have a strong voice.”
Dan Njuba, who is blind, once felt forgotten. Through MULIA’s inclusive education and music programs in Mukono, he built a new life. More than 5,000 people have used MULIA’s services since 2014.
MULIA FoundationWhat is at stake
One gift. A different story.
Every day, families face choices no one should have to make. Your support changes how the story ends.
Without support
- A child stays home because school fees and supplies are out of reach.
- A mother gives birth far from trained care.
- A young person in Lethbridge has nowhere safe to go after school.
With you
- A child learns, graduates and one day guides others.
- Babies are born safely at the Boura maternity clinic.
- Youth find mentors, a meal and belonging at Youth One.
We are all connected
“A single straw of a broom can be broken easily, but the straws together are not easily broken.”
As the African philosophy of Ubuntu teaches us.
Join the family.
Donate to a cause to end dependency and give people a real opportunity to survive, thrive and guide others to do the same, with dignity and purpose. Let’s make the world a better place to live.
Stay connected
Follow the story.
Receive news from Boura, our partners and our events. No more than once a month.
Why we do what we do
In Jesus’ name. For the glory of God.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me… Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”Matthew 25:35–36, 40 (NIV)
Six people Christ asks us to see. Six ways we answer.
Matthew 25 is our inspiration: we answer the call of Christ to care for the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger and the prisoner, with compassion, love, justice and mercy, and we serve every person with dignity, whatever their faith. Every plate, well, classroom and loan is an act of worship. To God be the glory.