Recipients
Table of Contents
Current Recipients
Amazing Love Development Organization
At Amazing Love Development Organization (ALDO), we believe every child deserves the chance to thrive. Founded in 2010, ALDO is a volunteer-driven Canadian charity dedicated to empowering marginalized children and youth in the Nakyere community and surrounding villages of Uganda.
Nakyere Village faces deep-rooted intergenerational illiteracy driven by poverty, isolation, and limited access to essential resources and quality education. Economic hardships often push children into labor or early marriages, reinforcing the cycle of poverty and limiting opportunities for growth. Harsh weather conditions, including frequent droughts and floods, scarcity of water and disruption of farming, the community’s main livelihood. Hunger is always felt in the community. Many of our children face significant challenges, including hunger, disease, and the risk of dropping out, often falling behind by as much as five years in literacy.
Through our flagship initiative, Amazing Love School (ALS), we provide access to quality education, empowerment, skills development, and nourishment for over 500 children, supported by 20 dedicated staff members, to grow academically, spiritually, economically, and socially. Every meal served, every classroom built, and every skill taught helps transform lives and create brighter futures for the children and communities we serve. Our programs go beyond the classroom, combining academic excellence with character development, teacher support, robotics, feeding and safe learning spaces.
Together, with our dedicated board, volunteers, School Management Committee, Parent-Teacher Association, and global supporters, ALDO continues to turn education into opportunity, empowering individuals, transforming communities, and creating lasting hope for generations to come.
Learn more about Amazing Love Development at www.amazinglovedevelopment.org
Canadian Friends of Oaxaca
Canadian Friends of Oaxaca (CANFRO) is a not-for-profit volunteer organization established in 2012. Its mission is to relieve poverty, to advance education and to improve the health of children and young adults in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. CANFRO raises funds that are distributed to five local NGO’s, which in turn provide meals, books, school supplies, scholarships, tutors and other support services to those in need. The Harrison Cooper Foundation grant supports the Tutor Project at The Oaxaca Learning Centre. Tutors assist young women and men to complete their high school education, and they are often the first person in their family to achieve this important accomplishment.
Children Believe
CODE
When children can read and write, they can learn to do and be anything! That’s the simple, yet powerful, idea behind CODE. For more than 60 years CODE has worked with local organizations in developing countries to empower children to read and to learn. Operating in sub-Saharan Africa, CODE promotes children’s literacy by providing schools with locally-authored children’s books, and works to improve learning outcomes through investments in teacher training, extracurricular programs and improved infrastructure. Together with our Canadian supporters, our programs have helped over 10 million children become more confident and capable readers. Learn more at: code.ngo
GIRLS’ ACCELERATED LEARNING INITIATIVE – LIBERIA
Courage, potential, determination – these are some of the many words that come to mind when we think of the girls participating in CODE’S Girls’ Accelerated Learning Initiative. Implemented in partnership with the WE CARE Foundation in Liberia, the program provides teenage girls in early-grade classrooms (Grades 1-3) an opportunity to accelerate their learning and gain valuable life skills.
As in other post-conflict countries, in Liberia, over-age enrolment remains a civil war legacy. But there are other persistent economic and social challenges that contribute to the high prevalence of children, especially girls, getting a later start in school.
The sight of teenage girls in primary school classrooms, hunched over their desks and surrounded by much younger peers, is far too common in the counties of Bomi, Margibi and Montserrado where the program is currently being implemented. Despite the shame they may feel, these girls still show up – signaling a real desire to learn. The Girls’ Accelerated Learning Initiative provides a critically needed safety net for these girls who would otherwise be at high risk of dropping out.
With this photo exhibit, we are delighted to celebrate the achievements of participating girls; share their voices; and galvanize interest in significantly expanding the program to meet the great need. We hope you will be as inspired as we are by the women and girls participating in the program.
WE CARE FOUNDATION – The Liberian education nonprofit was founded in 1992 during a brutal civil war. A dusk-to-dawn curfew kept people at home and within this context, WCF started a “book chain” providing books freely to people to pass the time and “feed their minds”. Eventually the WCF book chain became the WCF Library, until very recently, the only public library in Monrovia. Today, WCF is a leading Liberian civil society organization specializing in teacher development, children’s literacy, and book production. www.we-carefoundationliberia.org
CODE – For over 60 years CODE has worked with local organizations in developing countries to empower children to learn. Operating across sub-Saharan Africa, CODE focuses uniquely on improving foundational literacy through investments in local book production and distribution, teacher development, remedial learning opportunities and improved infrastructure. www.code.ngo
![When Sarah first joined the Girls’ Accelerated Learning Initiative in 2017, she was a 10-year-old sitting in a Grade 1 classroom. Having already repeated Grade 1 twice, Sarah was struggling to learn to read and to advance. Her days in the classroom were likely numbered. Fast forward a few years – Sarah has successfully passed the Liberia Primary School Certificate Exam and transitioned into Junior High School. Sarah says, “I was very excited [to join GALI] because I knew that it was going to benefit me in the future. Knowing how to read and write…furthered my understanding of lessons. Photo Credit: Lloyd Massah, 2020](http://harrisoncooperfoundation.ca/wp-content/uploads/slider/cache/0a5a23dfef56d8edad43dfb03a46cacc/DSC03608.jpg)
Hands Across the Nation
At HATN, our mission stands firmly on three essential pillars — Water, Health, and Education. Together, these form the foundation for lasting change in the communities we serve across West Africa.
Through our Education programs, we open doors to opportunity and hope. Each classroom we support, each child we empower, represents a brighter future taking root. Education is not just about learning — it’s about breaking the cycle of poverty, nurturing potential, and giving every student the chance to dream beyond their circumstances.
At HATN, we believe that when children are healthy, have clean water, and can learn freely, entire communities begin to thrive.
H204All
The Jerri Savuto Girls Rescue Centre Safe Water Project will install a well to provide safe and reliable water for girls escaping FGM and child marriage in West Pokot, Kenya. At present, these girls must walk 6 kilometres each day to collect unsafe water, exposing them to risks such as abduction, illness, and interrupted schooling.
Access to clean water is vital for maintaining hygiene, health, and dignity—not only for the girls at the rescue centre but also for the surrounding community. By ensuring a sustainable water source, the project will reduce waterborne diseases, enhance sanitation, and enable girls to focus on their education in a secure and supportive environment.
Opportunity International Canada
OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL unleashes the power of entrepreneurs in some of the world’s poorest countries. Through innovative partnerships, our programs enable people to expand their businesses, feed their families, create jobs and change their communities. Every minute, an Opportunity client accesses the financial tools, training and support to escape poverty and gain the opportunity to live a life with dignity and purpose.
Opportunity International Canada empowers families along their journeys out of extreme poverty toward new lives filled with strength, hope, resilience and the power to achieve their dreams.
Plan International Canada
Plan International Canada is part of a global organization committed to advancing children’s rights and gender equality.
The Refugee Education and Development (READ) project in Niger is helping children who are refugees be able to learn safely and equally amid conflict and other risks. The five-year project (in partnership with Global Affairs Canada) supports refugee-led organizations based in Niger. Strengthening the effectiveness of local, women- and youth-led organizations is key to ensuring displaced children, especially girls and children with disabilities, can harness their right to education that is safe, high-quality and accessible. Together, we’re helping children in one of the most challenging contexts on the planet realize their potential and succeed despite the odds.
Right to Play
For 25 years, Right To Play has worked with millions of children in 15 countries as the leading global authority in play-based learning to improve children’s education and health outcomes.
Play is how children understand the world, articulate their dreams, communicate with others, and grow into adulthood. Rooted in evidence that play is essential to child development, our international work includes shifting mindsets, building community capacity, and influencing ministries of education to ultimately catalyze systemic change in support of quality education; child protection; girls’ empowerment; and health and well-being.
Save the Mothers
Save the Mothers believes “no mother or child should die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth”.
For over 20 years, Save the Mothers proven programs have played a role in reducing the maternal mortality rate in Uganda. Our Master of Public Health Leadership program at Uganda Christian University has delivered graduates from diverse fields to make a difference in their own spheres of influence, giving them the tools and skills they need to become strong advocates for change, and to build new societal infrastructure.
In 2011 we launched our Mother Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (developed with input from Uganda’s Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization). Our 500+ graduates are working with hospital administrators and staff in assessing, recommending and implementing changes. The program is also delivering change by bringing about social transformation in hospitals so that mothers are treated with respect and dignity.
We continue our work in an effort to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 3.1 Maternal Mortality. Uganda’s mortality rate ratio is current 189 per 100,000 live births, with the SDG goal of 70 per 100,000 liver births by 2030.
The WHO reported that 700 women died from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth every day in 2023.
Take a Hike
Foundation
Water First
In many communities, existing water treatment staff are doing a great job with available resources. However, communities have identified the need for more qualified local personnel to support solving water challenges.
The Water First Internship Program supports young Indigenous adults to become certified water treatment plant operators. This in-depth skills training program addresses community-identified needs, supports building local capacity, and helps to ensure sustainable access to safe drinking water in Indigenous communities for the long term.
During this paid 15-month program, interns receive over 2,000 hours of hands-on skills training and experience — in the classroom, at local water treatment facilities and out on the land.
