Amani Children’s Home, founded and led in Tanzania in 2009, has evolved from a residential center for children in crisis into a catalyst for family- and systems-level transformation. I became involved in 2011 and was brought on as co-leader through an MOU in 2017. After more than a decade of providing safety, education, and care to children separated by poverty or hardship, we recognized what evidence has long affirmed: children thrive in families, not institutions. In alignment with Tanzania’s national child welfare reforms and global movements such as Changing the Way We Care (CTWWC, 2023), Amani closed its residential program in 2025 to focus on reintegration and prevention—ensuring that children grow within the stability of family and community. This transition reflects global best practice and the principles of the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, which confirm that family-based care fosters stronger developmental, social, and economic outcomes (Mulheir & Browne, 2007; UNICEF, 2011).

Today, the Tanzanian-led Amani Initiatives implements community-based programs that unite educational access, psychosocial support, and women-led livelihoods to address the root causes of child–family separation: poverty, gender inequity, and school exclusion. Early results show systems-level impact—80% of students assessed had safe homes to return to, all began phased reunification plans, and 100% remain in school. Every dollar invested yields a sevenfold social return, as family care costs less than half that of institutional care while producing four times the long-term impact. Together with its U.S.-based affiliate, the Amani Foundation—the charity I founded in 2015—Amani is advancing a model of care reform that transforms orphanages into hubs of family empowerment, aligning local leadership with global movements to end the poverty–orphanage cycle and build resilient, dignity-based systems of care (Better Care Network, 2015; Faith to Action, 2014).