H4OPE

Background on H4OPE

Background on H4OPE

H4OPE was formed in December 2016 by Denise Johnson. She had a huge burden for the poor and the unfortunates after her first mission trip to India in 2014. She has been helping the poor in India for 2 years before she started her efforts with the local refugees. Denise and her family were refugees 40 years ago, and she still remembers the struggles she faced as a refugee child. As a result, her work mainly focus on the children in the refugee community in Houston, Texas. She teaches them vocabulary words, listening comprehension, the American culture and etiquette and shows them life outside of poverty. Most of these children have never been inside a house before, they only know of the apartment complex they live, the school they attend, and the grocery stores where their parents shop. Denise takes them to her house to go swimming, to go see fireworks during 4th of July, to go visit her children’s college, and other various places. These efforts are aimed to help the refugee children assimilate and integrate faster into their community as well as motivate them to live above the poverty level.

In addition to helping the children, she helps meet the physical needs of their parents and families. Such efforts include providing basic furniture needs (couches, mattresses, dining sets, etc.), filling out medical application forms, explaining letters received from the children’s schools, from the Social Security office, and other entities.