Helping children thrive, not just survive
The Holley Children Orphanage is a beacon of hope for Tanzania's orphaned children. In the heart of Africa, we provide not just a home, but a place where dreams take flight, hearts find healing, and young spirits are empowered. Every child we uplift is a testament to the incredible joy and fulfillment that comes from giving back. Experience the unparalleled warmth of transforming lives with us, and watch as each child blossoms into their best self, one heartfelt gesture at a time.
2.5mchildren in Tanzania have lost one or both parents
An aunt with her own children. A grandmother on a small plot. Tanzania's extended families absorb almost all of it, quietly, and mostly without help. It works until it does not. Barely half of the children who lost both parents are in school at all.
Holley Children Orphanage is for the children at the end of that line. The ones with no aunt, no grandmother, and nobody left to take them in.
Figures from national statistics and UNICEF research on orphaned children in Tanzania. Ask us and we will send you the sources.
Holley Children Orphanage cares for children who lost their parents to HIV and AIDS, to poverty, or to circumstances nobody chose. It is run by Tanzanians who live here, not by visitors who fly in. Their combined efforts do more than just shelter orphans and vulnerable youngsters; they're planting seeds of hope, resilience, and empowerment. By offering a safe haven, access to transformative education, and immersive experiences in sustainable development projects, they're crafting a legacy of skills and confidence for these children, ensuring they step into adulthood with promise and purpose.
The house is in the Arusha district of northern Tanzania, under Mount Meru, with Kilimanjaro away to the east. For the children, this is not simply an address. It is home, a place of safety, belonging, and possibility.
Because Every Child Deserves to Feel Safe
Her smile tells a story of something every child deserves: a safe place to grow, learn, play, and dream. Your support helps make that possible, giving children like her the care, security, and opportunity to enjoy childhood today and build a brighter tomorrow.
Every child deserves the basic necessities to thrive: a safe place to sleep, nutritious food to eat, and clothing to feel cared for and valued. At the orphanage, these needs are provided every day, creating a foundation of stability, dignity, and hope for a brighter future.
Education opens doors to a brighter future. We provide children with the essentials they need to stay in school, including uniforms, shoes, books, backpacks, and school fees. In Tanzania, a simple school fee can be the bridge that keeps a child in the classroom, learning, growing, and building a future.
In the orphanage garden, children learn to grow, harvest, and care for the food that nourishes their community. Through sustainable gardening projects and hands-on life skills, they build confidence, responsibility, and the tools needed to create a more self-reliant future.
Sustained educational support can shape futures and empower children to become agents of change in their communities.
For her, it’s a simple game. For us, it’s a glimpse of what every child deserves, the freedom to dream about what comes next.
When she opens that final square and sees “a better future,” imagine if that hope could become real.
Your support helps make that possible.
Larger charities count in millions. We count in children, where every gift is empowering a child and transforming communities.
Press and hold
Keeping a home open takes more than one gift. It takes commitment.
Every month brings new needs: food, school fees, clothing, supplies, and the countless essentials of everyday life.
A monthly gift provides the stability to meet those needs, not just today, but tomorrow and every day after.
When you give consistently, you give children something priceless: a future they can count on.
It is my passion to lead children to a place where they know losing a parent or parents is not the end of life.
Naomi Albert Ndesa, founder, Holley Children Orphanage
Naomi was two years old when her birth mother died. She was raised by Margaret, her father's second wife, and did not find out Margaret was not her birth mother until she was grown. Margaret died in December 2005. Her father, Albert Ndesa, died two years after that. Naomi was sixteen and still in secondary school.
Her elder sister Mercy held the family together and kept the younger ones in class. When the fees ran out in 2009, Naomi went to work and paid her own way to the end of school. In 2011 she took a job at an orphanage in Moshi. She studied while she worked, through a diploma in business administration and a degree in commerce. Holley Children Orphanage is what she did with all of it.
She calls herself a living example of perseverance in action. The children in her house are being raised by somebody who knows exactly what they lost.
Naomi may be at the heart of the home, but she does not do this alone.
Surrounding the children is a devoted team of Tanzanians and a wider circle of people who make everyday life possible, from the food in the kitchen and the soap in the bathrooms to school uniforms, shoes, supplies, and the countless hands that keep the home cared for, stocked, and running.
Behind every moment is an opportunity.
An opportunity to learn. To play. To explore. To build friendships. To experience something new. To feel supported, encouraged, and seen.
These everyday moments are where meaningful change begins. Your generosity helps create a childhood rich in experiences today and a future rich in possibilities tomorrow.
Short notes from the house, a few times a year. What a gift paid for, what changed, and what we still need.
Three or four sentences about something that actually happened: a term of fees paid, a child who started school, a repair to the house, a harvest from the garden.
Donors give again when they can see what the last gift did. One specific thing, with a date on it, is worth more than a page of general appeal.
If there is nothing to report yet, say so plainly and give the section a date. An honest quiet month reads better than an invented milestone.
Every donation goes into one shared effort: building more classrooms, so more children can be educated.
Every gift, large or small, goes to the same place: more classrooms, so more children can be educated. Giving is in US dollars through PayPal, and every donation is tax deductible. Monthly gifts are arranged by email for now, and it takes one message: tell us what you would like to start and we will set it up from Arusha.
Books, desks, chalkboards, school supplies, building materials. Ask us what the classrooms are short of and we will tell you honestly.
A church, a school, a birthday, a run. Every group that raises money brings the next classroom closer.
Churches, companies and foundations who want to help build classrooms and see the receipts for it.
The word orphanage has been used by enough bad actors that any careful person should want proof before they give. Here is ours.
Holley Children Orphanage is a project of the Yelloh Foundation and operates in the Arusha district under Tanzanian law.
The Yelloh Foundation is the sole supporting entity of Holley Children Orphanage, founded by Holley Masch.
Ask us and we will tell you what it was spent on. We are small enough that Naomi knows where every shilling went, and small enough that she has time to answer you. Send us a note through the contact form.
Tanzanians who live in Arusha, led by Naomi Albert Ndesa, who lost her mother at two and her father at sixteen and paid her own way through school. She worked at an orphanage in Moshi from 2011 and studied business administration and commerce alongside the job. Holley Children Orphanage is a project of the Yelloh Foundation, not a foreign organisation with a local branch.
Write to us first. We do not run visits for tourists, and we do not put the children in front of strangers with cameras. Partners and funders are welcome.
They stay in school. The aim is a young adult who can stand on their own, not a child who ages out of a photograph.
Yes. Holley Children Orphanage is a project of the Yelloh Foundation, which is registered as a nonprofit, and donations are tax deductible. PayPal emails you a receipt at the moment you give. If your accountant needs anything more than that, ask through the contact form and we will send it.
Ask us anything and help us expand our school, educate more children, and give local children the future they deserve.
