WORLDWIDE ORPHANS

WWO aims to:

-Increase in the number of children entering first grade with the skills they need to thrive in school.

-Work with youth and adults to improve cognitive skills that lead to a better understanding of early childhood development, an ability to learn from experiences and apply these lessons in positive ways for the next generation.

-Work with youth and adults to improve social-emotional skills including positive youth development and healthy peer relationships.

-Increase technical skills within the field of early childhood development for teachers, parents, partners who work with children living in institutional care, volunteers working in community-based interventions and any others interested.

We work in conjunction with 104 collaborative partners to identify local needs. Then we work together to adapt and deliver our evidence-based early childhood education program, Element of Play®, youth development, and camp programs that address developmental delays caused by trauma. Our programs provide psychological, social, educational, and cognitive tools that break down social stigma and build critical life skills. Children who learn to overcome challenges make tremendous progress in becoming strong, successful adults.

WWO employs local leaders to manage our international programs. We believe that the best response to poverty and vulnerability is a locally sustainable and culturally relevant approach.

WWO uses play as a strategy for program delivery. Play is a right of all children and many adults never had their own chance to play when they were children. Learning, growth and relationship happen through play and laughter.

WWO works through partnerships, understanding that one person or one organization can not solve all the problems of one family or community.

WWO partners with government, other non-profit and community-based organizations to ensure a holistic response within each country's programs.

WWO seeks to empower youth and adults to become the positive change in a child’s life through training and skills development.

WWO has longstanding relationships and quality team of local staff in each of the countries where we work.

WWO continues to learn and grow through program monitoring and evaluation, adapting our work to emerging needs and scaling those programs that are evidence-based and having a positive impact.

WWO has worked with more than 200,000 vulnerable children and their caregivers in 19 countries over the past 26 years. WWO works with communities across the globe to deliver innovative programs that help vulnerable children thrive. Today, we have operating teams in Bulgaria, Ethiopia, Haiti, The Bronx, Ukraine, and Vietnam, focused on children and families who are experiencing poverty, housing instability, food insecurity, natural disasters, war, illness. Our innovative programming breaks down social stigma while building critical life skills for children,
WWO has made extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering within orphanages, for children and adults living with HIV/AIDS, and for those living in extreme poverty.


In the late 1990’s, WWO made extraordinary advances toward improving the care of children living in orphanages in Eastern Europe and Russia. This was the beginning of an important journey to bring awareness to the global orphan crisis, to change the paradigm of care for institutionalized children, and to build an effective and efficient organization with sustainable, replicable results.

WWO began its work in Bulgaria in 2004 by empowering more than 100 retired women from nearby communities (affectionately referred to as grannies) with a greater understanding of early childhood development, an awareness of the importance of attachment for young children, and by providing scientifically curated toys within WWO’s Toy Library. In partnership with 14 orphanage directors and municipal-level government, grannies were invited into the orphanages and began playing on a one-to-one basis with more than 3,000 young children over the years. This had an incredible and powerful impact on the lives of each child touched, offering much-needed stimulation, love, and attention.

By 2011, with advances in the science of early brain development, research from the Adverse Childhood Experiences studies (ACEs) and lessons learned from the previous 14 years, WWO consolidated its efforts under one innovative program design called Element of Play®.

By bringing lessons learned and best practices together from their work in over 30 orphanages within Bulgaria, Vietnam, and Ethiopia, WWO created an innovative and scalable model to address gaps in adult’s understanding of how children think and feel (training for caregivers, teachers, youth) and overcome barriers to the provision of quality early intervention services through WWO’s Toy Library, music programs, intentional art activities, and story-telling. This approach, based on a bioecological theory of development, supports more than the immediate needs of children, it also addresses the systemic strengths and challenges facing children within their families, communities, and society.