Our Vision and Values

Kaya was founded and is led by a group of Christians who are inspired by Jesus’ example and motivated by the Christian call to seek justice. We believe one of the world’s greatest injustices is that there are children living on the streets, marginalized, neglected and abused. Our aim is to work on behalf of these children, restoring to them their basic human rights and the chance to fulfill God’s unique plan for their lives. We serve children and families regardless of their religion, race, ethnicity or gender, and we willingly collaborate with anyone who shares our mission and respects our organizational values listed below.

The voice of the child

The children we serve are our most important stakeholders, and as such, we must listen to them and listen carefully. We believe our success will be mediated by how much we consider their perspectives and involve them in influencing our next steps as an organization.

The importance of family

We believe the best place for a child to grow up is within a family. Whenever possible, we work to reunify, restore, support and strengthen families so they can provide stable and loving care to their children. When family reunification is not an option, we believe adoption and foster care are the best alternatives, with permanency being a critical goal.

Holistic and strengths-based care

Children are physical, emotional, psychological, social, intellectual and spiritual beings whose healthy development depends upon nurturance across all these areas. We believe care should build upon children’s strengths and address their holistic needs.

Community involvement and sustainability

We believe that efforts to help children on the streets should aim to produce lasting changes, and that the local community is an essential ingredient in sustainable success. We believe that schools, in particular, are in a unique and promising position to be agents of change.

Research and evaluation

We believe intervention should be based on best practices that are tested and developed through sound and ethical research, and that our efforts should be able to demonstrate measurable results.

Collaboration and partnership

We believe that working collaboratively with others is the only way we will able to reach our ultimate goal. We believe partnership is key to maximizing resources and preventing the duplication of services.