Optimistic Voices

Send us Fan Mail Certified Ethical! Mission Excellence and Standards for Global Mission Deployment Last year we did an episode with Ellie Oswald from Faith to Action focused on the importance of ethical missions in regard to the safety and protection of children. In that episode, we talked broadly about ethical approaches to short-term mission trips, and introduced the 7 standards of excellence in...

Send us Fan Mail We can't fix anything if we don't know what's wrong! Your H osts, Yamine Vaughan and Laura Horvath talk about everyone’s FAVORITE topic - DATA!  Medical professionals understand that monitoring and evaluation is a huge and important part of our work in global health, certainly, but this optimistic voice believes that M&E is as important in the child welfare sect...

Send us Fan Mail This is the final episode in a series. If you have not listened to parts one and two of Pastor Rob Lough’s interview of Emmanuel Nabieu regarding his memoir My Long Journey Home, you should. Emmanuel Nabieu is the HCW Director of Mission Advancement and Partnership Development - whom we all call Nabs.  Warning, the content of the first two episodes can be somewhat disturbing in tr...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is part two of a series. If you missed part one - you should return to the prior episode and listen to it first.  Although the interview took place during a single session, we elected to break it into several episodes. Warning, the content in this and the prior episode can be disturbing as it truthfully depicts the violence  and brutality that Nabs experienced as a ch...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is part one of a series. Although the interview took place during a single session, we elected to break it into several episodes. Warning, the content can be somewhat graphic in truthfully depicting the violence that Nabs experienced as a child during the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone. Part One takes us from Nab’s early childhood through the time of his initial esc...

Send us Fan Mail T oday’s episode peels back the curtain to show the considerations that are made by organizations around the world when it comes to building sustainable programs, and for those of you getting into this work, may help you understand some challenges you may face and see some gaps in program planning. Host Yasmine Vaughan is joined by Mariama Massaquoi, a family medicine doctor based...

Send us Fan Mail Host Dr. Laura Horvath engages in conversation with Brandon Stiver SENIOR DIRECTOR, GLOBAL PROGRAMS AND PARTNERSHIPS The spiritual side of Orphan Care https://1millionhome.com/ https://thinkorphan.com/ Brandon has worked in the child welfare and nonprofit sectors for over twelve years. Before joining 1MILLIONHOME, he led a family based care and advocacy program in Tanzania for sev...

Send us Fan Mail Laura, Nabs, Yaz and Melody talk about their love for Helping Children Worldwide, and changing the world together! Think Global, Do Justice Website Passionate about your faith and making a difference in the world? Check out this podcast! ________ Travel on International Mission, meet local leadership and work alongside them. Exchange knowledge, learn from one another and be open t...

Send us Fan Mail Host Yasmine Vaughan discusses the topic of health disparity in wealthy and poor countries, and wealthy and poor citizens in every country. Special Guest Dr. Aruna Stevens is the Chief medical officer at Mercy Hospital in Bo, Sierra Leone. Dr. Stevens is a graduate of the College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences from the University of Sierra Leone. Since joining the staff at...

Send us Fan Mail Host Dr. Laura Horvath continues her conversation with Katie Milazzo and Lucy Matsumoto of All for One Foundation, as they share with their work in 23 countries, and their experience founding the Child Prosperity Centre in Sierra Leone with a new family support and a focus on child/family reintegration. This is a great episode for those who are thinking of moving away from old mod...

Send us Fan Mail Host Dr. Laura Horvath is delighted to have Katie Milazzo and Lucy Matsumoto on the Optimistic Voices Podcast for this two-part episode.   Lucy is the new Executive Board President of All for One Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on work with orphans and vulnerable children.  Lucy has been involved with nonprofit for more than 35 years and was blessed to have been part...

Send us Fan Mail Host Dr. Laura Horvath interviews the team behind the Attachment Theory Workshops being introduced as a means of bringing the lessons of Trauma-Informed care into low resource environments for social workers who work with primary caregivers taking on the challenges of accepting children into their homes to raise. We’re really excited to introduce you to the guests on our panel tod...

Send us Fan Mail Hosts Yasmine Vaughan and Dr. Laura Horvath: We’re happy to have with us today, Elli Oswald from Faith to Action, to talk about how they share with others best practices in short term missions. In particular, we are eager to have her talk about the importance of ethical missions in regard to safety and protection of children. Elli Oswald is the Executive Director of the Faith to A...

Send us Fan Mail From Rabies, to the Black Plague to Covid-19 to Monkey Pox - babies are subject to many preventable illnesses arising in their environment that can cause death. One Health is a crucial concept in understanding global health as climate change and transnational travel impact local public health issues for vulnerable populations - such as impoverished children and communities without...

Send us Fan Mail Beneeta Kulah lost her father when she was 3 years old. She was placed in a Christian orphanage in Liberia, West Africa, the country where she was born. She lived there for the next twenty years of her life, until she was released to live on her own because she was pregnant. Beneeta Kulah is a Care Leader. She is a courageous woman who grew up in alternative care who now uses her...

Send us Fan Mail W e’ve asked Reverend Wayne Lavender to be our guest on this episode of Optimistic Voices.  The Rev. Wayne Lavender, Ph. D., is a United Methodist pastor currently serving as the executive director of the Foundation 4 Orphans and faculty member in the political science department at Quinnipiac University. He earned his Ph. D. from George Mason’s School of Public Policy in 2010, an...

Send us Fan Mail Host Yasmine Vaughan Interviews Dr. Carrie Jo Cain,  Dr. Solomon Samura, and Dr. Benjamin Banguara in Sierra Leone, West Africa on their work to understand the causes of child mortality and impact global health and child survival rates. CHAMPS works in Mali, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, and Bangladesh and is moving into India and Nigeria in the next year. CHAMPS pa...

Send us Fan Mail Host Yasmine Vaughan speaks with three educators from Virginia and Texas on their experiences in participating in the Teachers’ Learning Collaborative with teacher-leaders from Sierra Leone. Sharon Gardner, from Grapevine, Texas, is the project lead teacher, and has been traveling to participate in Short Term Mission  in Sierra Leone five times since 2016 years. Janie Williams is...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, guest host Rev. Tom Berlin, Senior Pastor of Floris UMC in Herndon, Virginia, and co-founder of the mission of Helping Children Worldwide, interviews a panel of representatives from the UMC Strong Family for Every Child initiative. The panelists include Emmanuel Nabieu Director of Mission Advance and Partnership from Helping Children Worldwide, Rev. Wayne Lavender...

Send us Fan Mail Yasmine’s guest today, is Heather Hall: Heather has a wide range of expertise in the field. She has a Graduate degree in global public health nursing, previously worked as a nurse in Kenya, did consulting public health work in Kenya and a few other African countries, is a former Program Coordinator for the Tuberculosis/Refugee/Immigration Programs at a health department in Ohio, a...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Yasmine Vaughan and Dr. Laura Horvath discuss how donors can make better decisions when investing their money in charitable giving. How to recognize red flags and warning signs, versus indicators that a nonprofit organization is trustworthy and worthwhile. Special Guest Gillian Wagner, Global Impact. Of further interest on the topic of this episode is a Ted Talk a...

Send us Fan Mail Emmanuel Nabieu of Helping Children Worldwide interviews his colleague and co-host, Dr. Horvath, along with Dr. Andrea Siegel and Dan Hope, Executive Director of SFAC on their experience in trainings with social workers and case managers at the Child Reintegration Center, Bo, Sierra Leone. In this week's episode we are talking specifically about assessment of children and fam...

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