Our story
Upendo Face Orphanage was founded in 2013 by Godfrey and his best friend Bry. Like most of the children at the orphanage, Godfrey and Bry grew up without parents and were themselves once one of the many street children still found in the city of Arusha. But one day, when Godfrey must have been about 13 years old, fate took its course....
Godfrey met a couple, Izack Metthew and Felicitas. The two immediately took him into their hearts and took him in. They gave him a roof over his head, food to eat, a home and a family. From now on Godfrey lived in Machumba. With the consent of his new parents, he also brought his friend Bry from the street to his new home. Together they grew up here with 3 other younger siblings, and on this piece of land that they had been given by the grandmother of the family, they founded the Upendo Face orphanage in 2013, after they had taken in 6 other children without parents.
This is how Godfrey and Bry came up with the idea to pass on some of the happiness they experienced with their foster family to other orphans and named this new home "Upendo Face" (translated: lovely face). A home for children in the area who no longer have parents or need other help, for example because they come from very poor or even inhumane circumstances. A home that gives children hope and thus a perspective for their future.
In the beginning, the first children were taught math, English and general education by Godfrey and Bry themselves. Since 2015, however, we employ 2 loving teachers who do their best for our children every day from Monday to Friday. We are a type of preschool or kindergarten. Most of our children are 3-6 years old. Playfully they learn their first sentences in English, the most important numbers and how to write. Some of the children live with us directly in the orphanage, others live in the village with mostly still existing relatives, like a grandmother or an aunt, and some of them were taken in by a family in the village and live, so to speak, in a foster family. The solidarity in the area is huge and very admirable.
