Join A Care Team

Bringing Hope and Healing to Vulnerable Children

Okoa’s Residential Child Rescue Center is truly special! We’re passionate about these amazing children, but we believe no child should have to grow up in an institution. When a child arrives, our staff of mentors, social workers, caretakers, and healthcare professionals begins developing an individualized exit strategy for that child, prioritizing health, safety, and nurturing. This means tracing relatives or connecting with local adoptive families to help secure a child’s future.

Finding Forever Families

When you join a child’s Care Team through monthly support, you become a critical part of the journey to help a child find their forever family.

How it works

Correspondence

Care Team partners receive updates about the child they’re supporting (excluding confidential case information), including status of the resettlement process and learning about the child’s development. You’ll even receive handwritten or hand drawn notes, videos, or pictures. All correspondence is saved in a central location for easy viewing at any time! Care Team partners are also encouraged to send notes to the child they’re supporting. It’s as easy as sending an email to careteam@okoarefuge.org!

Gifts

Every child loves receiving gifts, and children at Okoa are no different! Suggested gifts include:

For ages 0–7: dolls, clothes, balls, bubbles, chalk, coloring books.
For ages 7+: clothes, hoodies, ball caps, art paper, journals.
Gifts can be mailed to Okoa Refuge at PO Box 50014, Jacksonville Beach, FL 32240.

Gifts must be packaged in a gallon size ziplock bag and labeled with your name and the child’s name. Packages are usually sent with a team traveling to Uganda.

Visiting

Did you know you can come to Uganda? Yes! As a Care Team partner, we invite and encourage you to come visit the child(ren) whose lives you’re impacting! Visits occur during Okoa short-term mission trips, so be sure to check out our current trip dates! If you happen to be in-country for any other reason, please send an email to careteam@okoarefuge.org for details on how to arrange to visit the child(ren) you’re supporting.

Resettlement & Adoption

We celebrate when children are placed in safe, loving homes! When this happens, you learn the news and details directly from us. If the new family no longer needs support, the child leaves our program. Many Care Team partners go on to help other children find forever families. Other times, the new family would benefit from ongoing Okoa support. This includes covering school fees and other items as needed. In this case, most Care Team partners continue giving until the family is stabilized.

MEET THE OKOA CHILDREN

Discover the life-changing impact of your support with Okoa Refuge. Our app connects you directly to the inspiring ministry in Uganda, Africa, making it easy to stay updated on the latest stories and posts from the field.

Visit the App

Residential program

Okoa works diligently to find forever families for each child in our care, but sometimes, it is not possible. For those children, Okoa is and always will be “home.” From housing, meals, healthcare, daily needs, mentoring, and education, these children receive love and everything they need from Okoa.

JOIN ANNET LOVE’S CARE TEAM

Annet Love
Birthday: 8/13/2020

Join Chanceline’s Care Team

Chanceline
Birthday: 6/26/2007

JOIN DIVINE’S CARE TEAM

Divine
Birthday: 5/15/2015

JOIN Elijah’S CARE TEAM

Elijah
Birthday: 3/16/2012

JOIN ADRIAN’S CARE TEAM

Adrian
Birthday: 1/9/2022

JOIN ANDREW’S CARE TEAM

Andrew
Birthday: 9/18/2015

Residential program fees

It only takes $150*/month to provide excellent care to one Okoa child!

Care Team partners give monthly support in full ($150/month) or in $25 increments. So a full Care Team can be one person or as many as six people!

Please note: Children with an asterisk (*) require specialized medical care. Their Care Team fees are $250/month.

Any support received above a child’s set amount is used to cover costs for children without Care Team partners.

Picture of girl in a pink dress swinging on a swing in a playground.

Family & Disability program

We partner with families as they grow to confidently lead, provide, and care for their children with disabilities and/or significant medical needs. Okoa covers surgery costs, provides medicines and therapies, supplies specialized and custom assistive devices, and champions parents as they create the best environments for their children to thrive.