OUR MISSION.
MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE FOR
ORPHANS and VULNERABLE YOUTH
Dream Sponsors, Inc. provides basic needs, educational opportunities, and mentoring to orphans and vulnerable youth to help them become self-sustaining while realizing their dreams.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered in the US, Dream Sponsors provides select individual youth with sponsorship opportunities for educational advancement, skill training, and academic enrichment. Through collaborative local and global partnerships, Dream Sponsors currently serves identified youth in Kenya and East Africa, while providing cultural engagement experiences and select sponsorships for students based in the US.
Having served children through sponsorship for over a decade, Dream Sponsors has seen the needs, circumstances, and socioeconomic environment change both for our individual beneficiaries and their direct sponsors. Our organization is committed to adapting to any changes we face to continue serving as many of the world's vulnerable youth as we can. We've started incorporating training, guidance, and program development projects designed to reach and empower larger numbers of beneficiaries collectively through groups, schools, and organizations.
Dream Sponsors volunteers in the US and Kenya are developing initiatives and collaborative partnerships to find solutions and funding opportunities for the basic needs of the children in regions of dire poverty, including:
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Better access to quality drinking water;
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Technological advancement for Kenyan-based partner schools;
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Village polytechnic school;
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Dairy farming;
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Village Health Facility;
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Quality sleep materials for Boarding School youth in the Massai School, Sirua Aulo Academy;
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Teacher training programs addressing Trauma, student motivation, positive discipline, and the impact of Grief and Loss on youth.
We aim to inspire local youth to "Think Globally and Act Locally," with the ability to:
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Assist them in fundraising efforts for sponsorships of local and global disadvantaged youth
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Provide cultural exchange opportunities between youth of diverse ethnic backgrounds, tribal differences, belief systems, and economic status
about dream sponsors MISSION.
EACH DAY IN KENYA, 700 CHILDREN
join over 2 million others as orphans
1 IN 5 CHILDREN IN THE US
struggle for access to food
61 MILLION CHILDREN WORLDWIDE
of primary school age are not enrolled
OUR HISTORY.
Cofounder M. Fiston Kahindo was orphaned at age 8 while living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, after the political regime murdered his father and his mother died suddenly a week later. In fear for their safety, little Fiston and his older brother walked for nearly two months fleeing the war-torn country to find shelter in a refugee camp. He endured extreme grief, loss, poverty, violence of slum living, dangerous living conditions in the refugee camp, and political threats. With the support of an African organization, a caring family in the US, and a scholarship, he left Africa for the US to achieve his dream of going to school. He earned a Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Business Administration with a focus in International Business on full scholarships.
Fiston now lives and works in New York City, while serving as a Dream Sponsors board member. He is passionate about helping youth with similar life journeys to survive and attend school.
Carla B. Neumann, MS, LMFT has worked extensively with Florida foster children, families, and victims of trauma, abuse, and mental illness throughout her ongoing career as a licensed psychotherapist. On a three-week volunteer trip to Kenya, she visited deplorable slums and orphanages in Nairobi, home to children whose parents die from disease, famine, and violence. On that trip, she met five former street orphans who shared their incredible life stories of survival and loss.
While Fiston was in his Bachelor’s Program, he served as the Student Government Association's first international president, and a local newspaper featured his life’s journey. Neumann was just returning from her inspiring visit to Kenya and reached out to Kahindo. The two began to build a culturally diverse Board of Directors to begin a formal initiative to help make orphan dreams come true, and then networked to form an indigenous Advisory Committee in Bunyore, a small village in Western Kenya.
We recognize the needs of children both here in the US and abroad, and are motivated to help them achieve their dreams!