Hope Behind Bars Organization is a grassroots non-profit in Central Ethiopia working alongside incarcerated women and their children to restore dignity, build skills, and prepare a steady path home.
We promote the psychosocial well-being, skills development, and reintegration of incarcerated women, while ensuring the protection and early development of their children — through a rights-based, holistic, and compassionate approach.
We aspire to a future where incarcerated women and their children live with dignity, hope, and the opportunity to thrive — both behind and beyond prison walls.
“We prioritize human life over infrastructure — investing in the ‘living temples’ of our community, and helping women move from stones to souls.”
— Hanna Adebacho Watchiso, Founder & CEO
Founded in 2025, Hope Behind Bars is a grassroots initiative in Central Ethiopia dedicated to the rehabilitation and successful reintegration of incarcerated women and their children — the people most often forgotten, and the children who live behind bars alongside their mothers.
Our work is holistic: vocational empowerment and entrepreneurship, legal advocacy and rights education, trauma-informed counseling and mental-health support, and Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) centers for children living with their mothers in custody.
In under a year we have reached 170 women, children, and community members across eight correctional facilities in three regions, graduated our first cohort of 15 women in professional hairdressing, and begun partnering with government bodies and international NGOs to address the systemic roots of incarceration.
These are not posters on the wall. They are how we hire, how we make decisions, and how we show up on the days when the work is hardest.
Every woman and child we serve is treated as a person of worth — never defined by a sentence or a circumstance.
We meet trauma with patience and care, walking with people through the hardest seasons of their lives.
We build skills, confidence, and independence so the women we serve can lead their own futures.
Children living behind bars come first — their safety, development, and right to a childhood guide our work.
We reach the women and communities most often overlooked, making sure support is fair and based on real need.
We work hand in hand with families, correctional staff, government, and communities. Change is shared work.
We track every program and every birr, and we report openly to the people and partners who trust us.
Led by our founder and three co-founders, guided by a board of eight, and grounded in the communities we serve across Ethiopia.
Founder & CEO
Non-profit leader with 10+ years in education, public health, and community empowerment. Holds an MSc in Sustainable Natural Resource Management and founded HBBO to bring dignity and hope to incarcerated women and their children.
Co-Founder
Co-founder supporting HBBO’s programs and growth across Ethiopia.
Co-Founder
Co-founder supporting HBBO’s programs and growth across Ethiopia.
Co-Founder
Co-founder supporting HBBO’s programs and growth across Ethiopia.
Whether you give once, give monthly, or give your time, you make this work possible. Choose how you would like to walk with us.
