Hope & Homes OUR STORY
Our story
Our story
In 1994 a retired British UN Commander, Mark Cook, and his wife Caroline visited the Bjelave Children's Institution in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Mark, who previously served as Commander of the British Contingent of the UN Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia, knew only too well the devastating consequences of Sarajevo's long-running siege. But it was when he watched a heart wrenching television news report about the city's shelled out Bjelave institution that he realised he and Caroline had to help.
Despite the fact Sarajevo was still at the heart of one of Europe's bloodiest civil wars, Mark and Caroline decided to fly out to the war torn city by posing as journalists. Upon arrival they located the Bjelave Institution and discovered that only the babies and older children remained in their shelled out 'home'. The other children had been evacuated by an aid agency. The buses that rescued them were shot at and tragically four children were killed.
The building that housed the remaining 120 children had also been targeted and badly damaged by snipers and constant shelling. There was no glass in the windows, no running water or electricity and very little food. The youngest children were crammed into one room, kept warm by a single flame from a gas pipe. In the next room the teenagers had torn up floorboards and pulled down door frames to burn for warmth. Some had turned to drugs to escape the reality of trying to survive in a warzone.
One correspondent from The Times newspaper described the institution as, "the worst place in Sarajevo aside from the morgue." These children, who had already suffered the ordeal of being orphaned or abandoned, were now living in poverty, fear and misery, with little hope for a happier future.
"It was absolutely shocking to see that a home for neglected children had been deliberately and relentlessly shelled," recalled Mark. "The children were so alone, distressed and living in such perilous conditions."
On returning home to Wiltshire, Mark and Caroline set up Hope and Homes for Children.
Our early work focused on improving the living conditions of children in state run institutions: rebuilding war torn buildings; investing in equipment and facilities; and sending out qualified childcare volunteers to provide training to existing staff. As time passed, however, we realised our approach would need to be a lot more radical if we were to really transform lives.
When we asked the children we worked with what they really wanted, their responses were unanimous: they all craved a family and a home. We soon realised that even the best institutions were unable to offer the individual care, attention and stimulation a child needs to develop properly. By listening to children we learnt it was within the security of a home and the love of a caring family that a child would truly flourish. We also learnt that many of the children in institutions have parents or extended families, but are abandoned due to poverty or war.
Every child has the right to grow up in a family and to be cared for and protected from harm or abuse. Not only is this a right, it is a basic human need. This is why our remit changed from re-building children's institutions, to closing them down – reuniting children with their birth families, placing them with foster or adoptive families or moving them into small family homes.
We now work in nine countries across Central and Eastern Europe and Africa and are world leaders in the field of Deinstitutionalisation. We transform outdated childcare systems into ones based on family care. The skills we have learnt along the way, and the tools we have developed, are now recognised as best practice by many governments and organisations - including UNICEF and the World Health Organisation.
.