Past & Future Projects

Projects this year

For the 2011-2012 program year, we have big plans for transformation at four orphanages. The most ambitious project we have planned for the year is a new combined school and dormitory at Frances Gaskin Children's Refuge. At right is the inside of the school right now: a mud and stick hut with a dirt floor and collapsing roof. Below is the outside of the same school, and beside it an artist's rendering of the completed project, with six ground-level school rooms and an upstairs dormitory for the boys.

The security fence at Frances Gaskin's has been completed! Thank you to all who helped support this project! 

In addition to these projects at Frances Gaskin Children's Refuge, we are also planning a number of smaller projects, every one important. These projects include Greater Opportunity homes for the teens we work with, clean wells, safe outhouses, and food relief. Check out our Urgent Needs page for more info on these.

Past projects: before and after photos 

This is the first orphanage that Orphan Relief and Rescue rehabilitated in Liberia, where 85 children were seeking shelter under the few scraps of remaining roof. On the right, you can see the incredible change just six weeks later: a new roof, tile and paint, a new well and even a rainwater collection system to feed a new shower block. Later on ORR built a school at this orphanage to provide a clean, safe learning environment.

On the left is a typical orphanage bedroom in the state we find it: thin, moldy mattresses lying in puddles, mosquitos making their home in piles of dirty clothes. On the right, the same room is transformed by bunk beds with new mattresses. The difference is enormous in the children's health--no more skin fungus, lice or staph infections.

This is Child Survival Orphanage, where in 2007 we replaced a shredded tarpaulin roof with a properly reinforced metal roof that will last many years. Because corrugated zinc was so valuable during the 14-year civil war, most orphanages lost their roofs altogether. Child Survival also received a new well, outhouses, bunk beds and mosquito nets -- all provided by people like you.

Keep learning about our construction program, or read about our many other programs.