We encourage and give hope to children in hard places, working as a team to make life just a little bit brighter.
About Us
Embrace Compassion serves children in hard places: one village in Ethiopia and kids with cancer in Oregon. We were established in 2010 and remain a grassroots organization.
We partner with a beautiful rural village in the western Oromia region of Ethiopia, where we encourage family preservation, education, and share humanitarian relief. Our Bright Spot sponsorship program encourages children to stay in school and provides supplies such as shoes, uniforms, school notebooks and hygiene materials. We also volunteer in the same area at the local hospital, bringing helpful supplies and spending time in the pediatric unit.
After our founder's son was diagnosed with childhood cancer in 2019 and died in 2020, the team at Embrace Compassion expanded its programming to include making life a little bit brighter for kids with cancer in our home state of Oregon. Embrace Compassion currently provides programming at a farm in Sherwood, Oregon, where kids with cancer and their siblings can take a break from trauma, safely play and just be kids. Each month we offer a themed Brighter Box, filled with farm goodness to continue the farm experience at home.
We love children and partner with the families to share hope and encouragement, one child and one family at a time. We believe everyone can make a difference!
Ready To Help?
Partnering with Embrace Compassion truly makes the life of a child brighter. Sign up today to sponsor a child in rural Ethiopia or to provide programming at the farm for kids with cancer. Donating a one-time gift also helps make what we do possible.
Programs
Bright Spot Sponsorship in Oromia, Ethiopia
When a child in our village can personally connect with an American friend, there is a relationship that encourages everyone. The child's tangible needs are met and that fosters personal growth and family preservation. The American friend is given an opportunity to make a difference and a window into a world that is not common to her. The blessing goes full circle. Child sponsorship encourages family preservation, which brings hope and wholeness to an entire community, our village.
Oftentimes, education is available for children at little or no cost, but they are excluded from school because they do not have shoes, uniforms or basic supplies. Sometimes the burden on the family to have their child go to school—rather than shepherd the animals, carry water or gather firewood—is just too much. We hope to give each child and their family a lift by providing basic necessities, sharing tangible help with the families, and partnering on sustainable new in-country opportunities for development. The relationship alone with the sponsoring family and friend is extremely motivating to the Oromo child and their family.
Brighter Box Experience in Oregon
Our desire is that children in treatment, and their siblings, might have a safe and fun experience that truly allows them to be kids. We want these children to feed the goats, check on the chickens, plant a few seeds and harvest some goodness to take home in their own Brighter Box. Each month, the farm will have a theme to help bring a little bit of the farm home with these special children. For example, in August when the berries are ripe, a farm box may have a child-sized apron with raspberries on it, all of the items needed to make jam, an age appropriate book about the farm and a simple art project for later.
Farm experiences will be given to families free of charge and set up in such a way to maximize their safety. When you choose to help fund these children's farm experiences, you are giving them the chance to be kids and to make their lives just a little bit brighter. We can't take away the cancer or the hardship they are going through, but we can give them something to look forward to, in coming to the farm each month.
Special Projects
Over the years, we have found strength in rallying support around specific projects within the village. When many of us come together, it makes the effort light. One-time gifts to help with special projects allow us to pool resources for an immediate need beyond our ongoing programs & sponsorship.
Some examples of special projects in the past are:
- The SIGN program implemented at the hospital in rural Ethiopia, which assists with healing broken bones
- Providing clean water through water wells
- Building a medical warehouse on the Ethiopian hospital compound
- Helping a single child receive surgery
- Building a new mud house for a family who was struggling
We anticipate expanding our special gifts to unique items that might be needed by cancer families in Oregon.
How can you help?
We would love to include you in our giving circle. Thank you for partnering with us in this adventure to make life for children just a little bit brighter. We're confident you'll receive the joy of giving for yourself. Please consider one of the following monthly or one-time donation options:
$1+
Single Gift
- General Support
- Special Projects
- One-Time or Monthly
$40/month
Bright Spot
- International Sponsorship
- Ethiopia / Oromia
- Monthly Donation
$40/month
Brighter Box
- Local Sponsorship
- Farm Experience
- Monthly Donation
Testimonials
Ebisa
Nurse, former Bright Spot child, volunteer in Ethiopia
When we help the children, we help them to be successful in their future. We are building good into the next generation by opening the child's heart and mind to help others. We teach them by example to love each other.
Amanuel
Clinic lab administrator, volunteer in Ethiopia
You find the best way to love our people and help them reveal the best version of their life. And this is the only thing you can do that has any lasting meaning. Bless you.
Jenny
Bright Spot sponsor
Being a sponsor for Embrace Compassion has been an absolute blessing. Seeing the transformation of a village in desperate despair to hope and prosperity has been an amazing experience. I absolutely love being a part of this journey. ❤️
Robera
Student volunteer in Ethiopia
I love volunteering with Embrace Compassion and am amazed by the opportunities and gifts they provide to improve the life of children. Together we pray for and encourage kids in the hospital, pay for treatments and even built a safe store (medical warehouse) at the Nekempte referral hospital. The volunteers also learn so many thing like love, love and love. I invite you to be a part of this job!
Aquino family
Brighter Box Experience guest
An absolutely beautiful place to share love for the family, to heal, and to hope. A very special place for kids fighting cancer. What you will see and experience here is a true labor of love.
Susan Martin-Dato
Lead Bright Spot administrator
Embrace Compassion, our leadership here, our leadership in Ethiopia, the American Friends who sponsor a child, all of the many volunteers and supporters who contribute time and resources are making a very real difference in the world!
Misty Auel
Volunteer
Traveling first hand with Embrace Compassion, I was able to witness the extensive work being done to increase the strength and skills in the communities they work with. This is happening through creating access to education, advancing medical programing and strengthening community infrastructure.
Journal
Authentic musings & news from our courageous team as we do life together at Embrace Compassion.
Team
Our Embrace Compassion team is primarily a group of volunteers, giving out of our overflow. We have incredibly talented professionals who work their regular jobs and then invest in Embrace Compassion through life-impacting volunteer work. Some of our behind the scenes volunteers are attorneys, accountants, coders, executives and sales people. Some are stay-at-home moms. What binds them together? Their commitment to children in hard places.
Ethiopian, Oromo Team
This diverse team works hard to use our individual skills to make all the pieces come together. From doctors at the Ethiopian hospital, to young people translating letters and distributing supplies, everyone works together to help make life brighter for the students.
Tuesday Morning Volunteers
These wonderful people gather supplies all year round, which benefit our kids. They take home tasks to work on during the week. They are moms, grandmas, students and regular people doing extraordinary work.
Oregon Farmhands
As the Oregon farm program begins to roll out, we will be looking for farmhands—young people, under the supervision of their parents or others, who might have time to help out at the farm. (We take both skilled helpers and those looking to find purpose just in participating)
Frequently Asked Questions
-
Why just one village?
We are intentionally focused, because that is what allows us to partner with local leaders and families. With the one-village approach, local people can take the lead and we simply provide support. Our village is full of hidden gems of talent, culture that is beautiful and bright minds. This village partnership is really about the relationships that have been allowed to grow since our first visit in 2010. There are no other sponsorship programs or outside help in this particular remote area of Ethiopia that we know of.
-
How do we choose our children in the Bright Spot program?
Simply put, we Americans do not choose the children. We are in no position to do so. Instead, we partner with proven leadership within the village and work with them to select the children. Preference is intentionally given to children who are attending school, with the goal of equipping future local leaders. We have a family of choice in the village who shares in this passion of encouraging and blessing the children and they offer us incredible wisdom, cultural discretion and safety through this teamwork, as each child is chosen one by one.
-
What aid is given to a child when I sponsor them through the Bright Spot program?
The baseline of gifts we provide are: multiple outfits of clothing for school and school uniforms, shoes, hygiene pads, hair oil, toothbrushes soap & vaseline. Preventative treatments like prophylactic Albendezol to prevent parasites, multivitamins, vitamin A to prevent night blindness and iodized salt to prevent goiter. We provide locally required school supplies such as notebooks, text books, pens, pencils, and special seasonal items. Supportive expensive food items like cooking oil, sugar, coffee and grain. We hold celebrations twice a year with food and these gifts provided as well as letters of encouragement from their American friend. In addition to the baseline of items, we also helps with special projects for the kids as needed. Over the years we mix up the aid. We have provided mattresses, family bed blankets, solar lights, water wells, specific medical treatments or surgeries at the local hospital, a laptop computer or phone, a new roof, a new house, oxen, goats, and start-up business expenses. Once a child reaches the university level, we continue support to make their education achievable, even if they have a government scholarship. With the gifts in kind added to your sponsorship gift, each child receives approximately $750 a year in aid.
-
How do I nominate a child with cancer in Oregon for a farm experience?
If you would like to nominate a child and their family going through cancer treatment in the local Portland, Oregon area, please message us here to send in their information. We will reach out to the family.