About the charity

Hanna's Orphanage is a small charity set up to help vulnerable children of Ethiopia by supporting the maintenance and expansion of Hanna Orphans Home. We fundraise in the UK for the orphanage, and provide the children with toys, books, clothes and anything else they need.

Now into the second year of running, Hanna's Orphanage has provided a lot of financial and material support to Hanna Orphans Home, and has spent time in UK schools and businesses trying to show people that Ethiopia is a beautiful and welcoming country.

Hanna's Orphanage always aims to respond to what the orphanage needs, and they can always tell you exactly where your money has gone. For more details on the mission and ethos of the charity, please see the mission statement.

As we are run entirely by volunteers and have very few overheads, 100% of the money can go straight to the orphanage. We are very lucky to have a great team of people working to run Hanna's Orphanage, and nothing can happen without them! They include:

bullet point image Jenny Higgins
Jenny founded Hanna's Orphanage after a trip to Addis Ababa in October 2006. She is currently based in Ethiopia and oversees the work that Hanna's Orphanage does, as well as teaching at Hanna Orphans Home and helping to write funding bids and reports. When she is in the UK, she delivers workshops in schools across the country, helping to dispell myths and stereotypes about Ethiopia and to raise awareness of the charity.

bullet point image Anne-marie Higgins
Hanna's Orphanage simply could not exist without Anne-marie, who is both a trustee and the treasurer. She is constantly coming up with new ways of raising money for the charity – most recently the collection of unwanted foreign currency – and deals with all the Charity Commission regulations and reports. She also did a sponsored abseil down a 15 storey building with Danyele!

bullet point image Kirsti Leeder
Kirsti is one of the trustees of Hanna's Orphanage, and works hard at raising awareness of the charity in Suffolk.

bullet point image Patrick Miller
Patrick has slaved tirelessly over the last 6 months, designing this fabulous website and organising our stylish newsletters. An invaluable source of IT advice and expertise for Hanna's Orphanage, he can often be found trying to translate some computer information into plain English for Jenny.
dasmiller.co.uk.

bullet point image Anthony and Danyele Higgins
Danyele and Anthony are Jenny's younger siblings, and were roped in from the very beginning. Both are always on hand to upload photos, send emails, build websites, run myspace and bebo pages, and walk 22 miles or abseil to raise money. They also visited Ethiopia and the orphanage this year, bringing skipping ropes, books, toys and games for the children.

bullet point image Maria Inglis
Maria has been involved in Hanna's Orphanage from the very beginning, and was responsible for starting and running our very successful fundraising music night as well as taking part in our sponsored walks. Maria is often coming up with new and fabulous ways of raising money for Hanna's Orphanage.

bullet point image You?
Please contact us at info@hannasorphanage.org.uk if you think you can help in any way!

A brief history …

The idea for Hanna’s Orphanage was born during a trip to Ethiopia in October 2006, when Jenny Higgins visited Hanna Orphans Home in Addis Ababa. At the end of her holiday, Jenny discovered she had some Ethiopian money (birr) left over and wanted to donate it to a local Ethiopian charity. She and a friend asked around and were soon taken to Hanna Orphans Home, where they met Hanna Teshome and a lot of the children.

Jenny was impressed with how well run the orphanage was and how happy the children were, and could see that it would be very easy for her to help – there are 17 birr to £1, so all money raised is already worth so much more in Ethiopia.

When Jenny got home, she started talking to friends and family about the orphanage and gathering suggestions about what they could do to help. Many people donated clothes, books and toys, and in November 2006 Jenny travelled to the orphanage and to deliver these, and to work with Hanna to decide how best to help.

When she got back to England, everyone got involved in raising money: Vasant Bhuva, Ian Dust and Karis Bunney walked 22 miles along the route of the Circle Line, Maria Inglis organised a music gig, and Nicole Masri organised a quiz. Hanna's Orphanage, the charity, was born!