Our Story

While on a Mental Health Missions trip to Africa, I encountered this wonderful little girl. She was bright. She was sassy. She knew it all, and she would tell it all. As a result, she gained the nickname Miss Tea. 

 

One evening, Miss Tea crawled in my lap and handed me a book to read. After reading, she laid in my arms, and I rocked her. As she sucked on her two fingers and  reached to  touch my face with her other hand, I began to reflect on my childhood and a conversation we had at the round circle with a group of teenage males. 

 

One of them asked, “If some entity holds your future, how do you have hope?” I do not remember all of the things I said that night. The one thing I do remember saying was, “There is always hope.”  

 

Rocking Miss Tea, reflecting on that group of young males readying themself to go out into the world, and thinking about my own personal journey. I thought to myself, I did not have everything I wanted, however I always had what I needed. 

 

I realized  one of the most important things I had, which I could not purchase, was OPPORTUNITY. The opportunity to learn, the opportunity to explore, the opportunity to grow.The opportunity for HOPE….and Hope changes everything. 

 

All I learned led me to disrupt the idea that perpetual charity was a sustainable way to maintain organizations and communities or a sustainable way to instill HOPE. It was more evident that systemic change around sustainability must occur for communities to experience healing from trauma of poverty, neglect, and institutions.

 

In this, the SOZO philosophy was birthed, “by facilitating social enterprise and independence within organizations and individuals, each are empowered to pivot from perpetual dependence on charity towards the  hope of a brighter, more sustainable tomorrow.”

 

 We lay before everyone who will grace  these pages an OPPORTUNITY  to create HOPE. My deepest desire is that you will join us there.