teaching

Seeds of Hope, a regenerative agriculture program for refugees through Equipping Hope International

April 1, 2025July 1, 2025

Introducing Seeds of Hope: Growing Food, Faith, and Futures in Nyarugusu

In refugee camps like Nyarugusu, food is often scarce. Malnutrition is common. Families rely on basic rations that must be stretched to survive — three bowls of maize and one bowl of beans per person, per week. These rations are rarely enough to meet daily nutritional needs. And even when food is available, most families lack the means to cook it without sacrificing something else.

But we believe a better way is possible. And it begins with the ground beneath our feet.

In the coming years, Equipping Hope International plans to launch a new initiative called Seeds of Hope — an entrepreneurial farming program rooted in biblical stewardship, food security, and economic empowerment. It will be the third pillar of our mission in Nyarugusu, joining our educational and vocational programs to equip the whole person with the tools to thrive.

Here’s what Seeds of Hope is all about and why we believe it’s the right next step for our work.

November 1, 2024July 1, 2025

How Faith Communities Can Support Refugees Without Creating Dependency

When a crisis touches our hearts, our natural instinct is to help. For churches and faith communities, this desire often leads to food drives, clothing collections, or donations to emergency relief efforts — all valuable responses in times of urgent need.

But what happens when that need isn’t short-term?

What happens when a refugee camp isn’t a stopgap, but a home for decades?

September 1, 2024July 1, 2025

Why We Employ Refugees to Teach and Train in Nyarugusu

At Equipping Hope International, one of our foundational commitments is simple: we hire local. That means when we need someone to teach English or train tailoring students in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, we look first — and often only — to the refugee community itself.

We don’t fly in short-term instructors from the U.S. or recruit professionals from overseas. Instead, we invest in the talents, skills, and leadership already present within the camp.

Here’s why that decision isn’t just practical — it’s essential to who we are and how we believe real transformation happens.

July 1, 2024July 1, 2025

Meet the Team: Elise Harvey, Vice President & Marketing Director

Every thriving mission needs both vision and care. At Equipping Hope International, Elise Harvey brings both — along with wisdom, warmth, and a deep commitment to sustainable, Christ-centered work.

As a founding partner and behind-the-scenes advisor, Elise has helped shape Equipping Hope from the very beginning. She is the quiet strength behind the strategy, the voice of encouragement in hard seasons, and a faithful advocate for dignity-based ministry.

Children at Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Tanzania learning English through Equipping Hope's Teaching Hope program

April 1, 2024July 1, 2025

5 Lessons We’ve Learned After 5 Years in Nyarugusu

When we first started Equipping Hope International in 2018, we didn’t begin with a long strategic plan or big donor campaign. We began with a friendship, a shared burden, and a simple desire to do something that mattered. Five years later, our work in the Nyarugusu refugee camp has grown into a small but deeply rooted effort to equip refugees with skills, opportunity, and spiritual hope.

Serving in Nyarugusu, one of the largest and longest-standing refugee camps in Africa, has taught us more than we ever expected. And as a Christian nonprofit working in Tanzania, we’ve had to unlearn some assumptions, deepen our commitments, and trust God to multiply however much we bring.

Whether you’ve been walking with us since the beginning or are just now learning about our mission, we want to share five of the most important lessons we’ve learned since launching educational and vocational programs in a refugee camp setting.

Students learning English in a Business of Hope class through Equipping Hope International. Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, Tanzania

October 1, 2023July 1, 2025

How We Measure Success in a Refugee Camp Setting

In most organizations, success is measured in numbers like revenue, expansion, metrics that make for bold headlines and bright graphs. But in a refugee camp, where nearly everything is constrained by circumstance, success looks different.

At Equipping Hope International, we’ve spent the past several years walking alongside refugees in the Nyarugusu camp in western Tanzania. We’ve seen firsthand how long-term displacement challenges conventional ideas of progress. And we’ve learned to ask a different question: What does faithfulness look like here?

women learning to become tailors through tailoring apprenticeships with Equipping Hope's Business of Hope program in Nyarusgusu Refugee Camp in Tanzania.

November 2, 2022July 1, 2025

One Stitch at a Time: Tailoring Program Impact in Nyarugusu

In part one of our 2022 program reflection, we shared the growth and outcomes of our English education initiative in the Nyarugusu refugee camp. Today, we turn our attention to another pillar of Equipping Hope International’s work, vocational training for women through the Business of Hope tailoring program.

Since 2019, this initiative has equipped dozens of refugee women, many of them widows, adolescent girls, and orphans, with practical sewing skills and the confidence to pursue income-generating activities in a camp where few economic opportunities exist. This program is about more than skills. It is about dignity, security, and future stability.

Congolese refugee students learning English at a Teaching Hope literacy class in Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in Tanzania

September 24, 2022June 28, 2025

Sustaining Hope: Reflections on Three Years of Impact in Nyarugusu

Since Equipping Hope International launched its first training programs in the Nyarugusu refugee camp nearly four years ago, our mission has remained consistent: equip displaced people with skills and opportunities to rebuild their lives with dignity. Three years in, we are humbled by how much has been accomplished and more convinced than ever that sustained investment in education and vocational training changes lives.

This blog post is the first of a two-part update based on our 2022 field report, highlighting the outcomes of our English and tailoring programs to date. In this post, we focus on the Teaching Hope English initiative and its long-term impact in a camp where barriers to education are steep and opportunities are rare.

Cofounder Alex Harvey at a stateside gift wrapping fundraiser for Equipping Hope International

March 28, 2022June 28, 2025

Why We Teach to Fish: A Reflection from the Cofounder

In the earliest days of Equipping Hope International, before we had formed a board, launched a program, or drafted a mission statement, I kept returning to a simple but powerful idea, the kind of idea that’s easy to say but hard to live: teach a man to fish.

October 1, 2021July 1, 2025

The Theology of Work in Displacement: Why Skills Matter Spiritually in Nyarugusu

In refugee camps like Nyarugusu, the conversation around skills is often framed in terms of survival. Learning to sew means income. Learning English means opportunity. Agricultural training means food security.

All of these are true. But at Equipping Hope International, we believe there’s more to it.

We believe work has spiritual meaning.