Saving Orphans through Healthcare and Outreach, formerly known as Seeds of Hope Outreach, was founded by Cynthia Prime and Linda Schultz in the US in 2006. Currently our network spans the United States, parts of the Caribbean, Australia, and New Zealand. This is only a beginning because the needs are overwhelming. We recognize that it will take many hands working together to change the future for the orphaned and vulnerable children and those living in child-headed households.
Cynthia J. Prime, a Caribbean born social activist, traveled throughout the United States, Canada and the Caribbean for over a decade, inspiring and motivating battered women and teen girls to get beyond suffering and survival to a fully empowered life. She organized conferences and conducted seminars and that is how she received an invitation to speak in Swaziland, a small kingdom in southern Africa with the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world.
Moved by the plight of the thousands of orphans and vulnerable children and the helplessness of elderly grannies and AIDS widows, she joined forces with Linda Schultz, a successful businesswoman in the health-care industry, to begin organizing volunteer clinics in Swaziland.
As they traveled to other parts of southern Africa, they saw that women comprised the largest percentage of AIDS victims and teen girls, as well as young women of child bearing age, were hardest hit. Seeing children going days without food, vulnerable to abuse and using sex as the currency for survival, she came to grips with the reality that a small non-profit organization with a skeleton volunteer crew could do little to initiate long lasting change.
In addition to recruiting volunteers, she developed a network of collaborators including, but not limited to, businesses, universities, and health-care providers both in the US and abroad. SOHO’s outreach supporters include Edna Geelan and Lorraine Hope, who are regional leaders in Australia and New Zealand respectively, and who rally support in their countries.
To read more about the founders, please click a name below:
SOHO People
Annie Elble is involved in program development, writes grants, serves as academic liaison and coordinates many of our outreach activities. Annie has a Master of Public Health (MPH), a PhD in Foods and Nutrition and a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, all from Purdue University. She has volunteered at Baylor College of Medicine’s Pediatric HIV clinic as well as Selula Sandla HIV orphanage in Swaziland. She has coordinated volunteer trips with students, conducted research on mother to infant HIV transmission and conducted an undergraduate service-learning program addressing HIV, poverty alleviation and illiteracy.
Sheila Viswanathan, a native of Zambia, has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) with an emphasis on Visual Communication Design from the University of Indianapolis. She also has a second area of emphasis in International Relations. She is in charge of graphic design for all publications and promotional materials. Sheila is also involved in coordinating projects and Fair Trade.
Deborah Jamieson, RN serves as Operations Manager and provides program development assistance on a volunteer basis. She has a Bachelors of Science in Nursing from Andrews University, Michigan and has done post graduate studies at Indiana University School of Nursing. She has ten years of management experience at Wishard Health Services and has periodically taught classes at Indiana University School of Nursing. At SOHO, Debbie wears many hats and fills in wherever there is a gap to keep things running smoothly.
