When we started building Project Canaan on 2,500 acres of land in Eswatini in 2009, we made a decision that has shaped every choice since: we were not going to build a place where children are simply cared for. We were going to build a place where children grow into themselves.
Caring for a child covers the essentials: shelter, food, safety, education. Raising a child into themselves requires something more intentional. It spaces that invite joy, not just function, experiences that teach values, build skills, and let a child discover what they love and a community that says, consistently and in a hundred different ways, that who you are as an individual matters here.
That is the model we have been building on our children’s campus at Project Canaan since the first baby was placed with us in 2012, and it is still growing. Today, over 460 children call this place home, each one placed through the Eswatini social welfare system under a formal court order, each one arriving before the age of two. This is what we have built for them.
Our Aunties and Uncles
he foundation of everything at Project Canaan is not a building or a program. It is a relationship.
The children in our care grow up with caregivers they call their aunties and uncles, consistent adults who live with them in family-style homes and have known them for years. These are people who remember what a child was like as a toddler. Who notice when something has shifted. Who show up on the hard days and the ordinary ones, because that is what it means to be a family.
In most children’s care settings, caregiver turnover is one of the most significant challenges. Children form attachments and then lose them, again and again, which does real damage to how they understand relationships and their own sense of worth. We have worked hard to build a model where that is not the experience. Most of our caregivers have been with us for years, and that consistency is the quiet foundation that everything else is built on.
A Childhood That Belongs to Them
We have been deliberate about building a campus that gives children more than what they need. We have built what they deserve.
There is a swimming pool at Project Canaan, complete with a slide, because we believe children should know how to swim and how to enjoy an afternoon in the water. There is a bike track, a sand volleyball court, and a basketball court where kids play both netball and basketball. Two large dining and recreational buildings, Oasis 1 and Oasis 2, serve as the gathering spaces where meals happen, board games get competitive, performances take place, and movie nights bring the whole community together.
These aren’t just amenities. They are an expression of our conviction that joy is not a bonus in a child’s life… it’s essential to it. Children who grow up with play, with sport, with laughter and community, and the experience of simply having fun, develop differently than children who don’t. We want the children at Project Canaan to look back on their childhood and remember not just that they were safe, but that they were happy.
Church and small groups are also an essential part of the rhythm of life here. We believe that a strong foundation of faith gives our children an anchor, a sense of meaning, and a relationship with someone greater than themselves who will carry them long after they leave Project Canaan.
Discovering Who They Are
One of the things we are most intentional about at Project Canaan is giving each child the space to discover what makes them, specifically, come alive.
Some of our children are on our swim team. Others are taking golf lessons. Some have found a love for gymnastics. We try new things regularly, and we pay attention to what lights a child up, because knowing what you love and who you are is one of the most important things a person can carry into adulthood. We don’t want the children here to leave Project Canaan having only experienced life as a group. We want them to leave as individuals with interests, passions, and a sense of their own identity that is genuinely theirs.
That individuality is also woven into the everyday. When a child has a birthday, it is celebrated within their home group, with a cake, with a gift chosen for that child at that age. Small in the scheme of things, but significant in what it communicates: you are seen, you are celebrated, you are worth marking.
We also keep a digital photo folder for every child from the day they arrive, building a visual record of their life at Project Canaan that we will one day be able to hand to them as they step into adulthood. Most people take for granted that they have photos of their childhood. Our children will have that too.
Values That Last
Building identity requires intentional investment in character.
At Project Canaan, building core values is extremely important to us. Our children learn honesty, kindness, and the importance of being trustworthy. They learn what it means to be a leader and to take responsibility for the spaces and relationships around them. They have chores: making their beds, cleaning their clothes and shoes, contributing to the upkeep of the home they live in. These are not tasks for the sake of tasks. They are the daily practice of taking ownership, showing up, and caring for something beyond yourself.
We also take our children into town. They visit grocery stores, learn what things cost, how to make choices with a budget, and the difference between what you need and what you want. These trips are part of our intentional preparation for the world they will re-enter as young adults, and they happen because we believe financial literacy and practical independence are as important as any academic subject.
When each child reaches the milestone of age of twelve, we sit with them and tell them their story (as much of it as we know, shared with care and sensitivity, age-appropriate in its details). We do this because every person deserves to know where they came from and by age twelve, they are often asking more of this core identity questions. The conversation is two-way, questions are welcomed and the conversation is handled with honesty and with love. It is one of the most significant moments in a child’s journey at Project Canaan, and it is part of how we ensure they leave here knowing not just who they are, but how they came to be.
What We Are Building Toward
When a young adult eventually leaves Project Canaan, we want them to carry more than a diploma and a set of practical skills. We want them to carry a strong sense of who they are, a clear set of values to lean on, memories of a childhood that was genuinely theirs, and the knowledge that they were loved well for every year of it.
That is the model we’ve been building. It’s more ambitious than providing care, more expensive, and it takes longer to see the results, but we believe in our approach and see each of our children excelling in becoming well-rounded individuals.
The community at Project Canaan is ever growing with new homes being built as the children age (the oldest are now fifteen) and as new babies join the family. The story of this generation is still being written, and it will continue to be written for years to come.
Be Part of What We’re Building
Everything described in this article, the caregivers, the campus, the birthday celebrations, the hobby programs, the town trips, the photo folders, the values and conversations and the daily rhythms of a childhood being built with intention, all of it requires ongoing support.
This month, we’re running our annual summer campaign. This year, we’re asking for your support in raising these 460+ amazing children well, in a community designed to help each one of them become fully themselves.
If you would like to be part of that, we would love to have you with us. You can click below to learn more.
→ Support the children at Project Canaan this month
To learn more about monthly child sponsorship and what a longer-term commitment to this community looks like, feel free to reach out to our Annual Fund Manager, Jesse directly at: Jesse@heartforafrica.org.