The Wanted Children Foundation (TWCF) was established in 2006 to meet the growing numbers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Nigeria, West Africa.
The goal of The Wanted Children Foundation is to provide care and a future for these children who have been left without opportunity or hope of a better life. TWCF believes that every child deserves to have a safe and nurturing environment where they can learn and grow and reach their full potential. Children and infants who come into TWCF’s care, receive the love of family, the gift of belonging, as well as health, nutrition, psychosocial support, mental health support, education, and skills training. The goal of TWCF is to provide a family-centered environment, this embraces a life-cycle approach to child-care, where the children will remain until they graduate from their schooling, they will always have a home and family to return to.
TWCF was founded in 2005 and registered as a Canadian charity in 2006, with its goal being to meet the great need of OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) in Nigeria, West Africa. TWCF had struggled for the majority of its founding years in Nigeria, but in 2012 a turnaround began and brought a solid start to achieving the long-term goals envisioned. TWCF was founded with a primarily Christian-faith Board, however, it exists to provide care, compassion and quality of life irrespective of religion. Over the years our Board, as well as many volunteers and supporters, have grown to include a diverse set of individuals who believe in the common purpose of the foundation as well as value and respect for human life. It is this type of relationship building a unity that TWCF desires to model for others.
Over the years, The Wanted Children Foundation’s Site Manager Mr. Amos Antoka, who had been training under Courtney Anderson, took over supervision of the programs. This was a huge step which saw capacity-building, ownership and self-efficacy take place among the TWCF Nigerian staff.
The first permanent children’s home was opened in August 2013, along with a homeschool centre and counselling centre. TWCF has worked tirelessly to raise awareness and gain support to reach its goals. The first project site of the TWCF Children’s Home was in Amaba, Isuikwuato, Abia State. It continued on with the primary focus to reach the long-term vision and goals of TWCF by taking in selected OVC children. Children were able to come into permanent care at this location and become part of the TWCF family and begin healing from their past traumatic wounds and move toward happy, healthy education and quality of life. The community at large always received care and support from us, including whatever little we had to share was given to us. One of TWCF proudest achievements was putting in a borehole, thanks to the generous donations of many, which was tapped outside the compound walls and run daily for the community to access clean drinking water.
TWCF opened its own nursery and primary school called Homestead Alternative Academy, and as the children continued to grow, a new site was never far from mind as space was in high demand for everyone. In 2018, TWCF was gifted land for a new site which began the journey of meetings, paperwork, clearing and caring for the land, and eventually building moving to a new village, Eluama, Isuikwuato in 2020, a place we can truly call “home”.
Today, TWCF continues to love and care for its children, and along with running Homestead Alternative Academy, which opened its doors to the public in 2021, it runs pre-kindergarten to SS3 for graduation, providing high quality education.
