We Have Rebranded!
Project Nyame Nsa has rebranded to Agape Global. Welcome to our new website!
Who We Are
Agape Global (formerly Project Nyame Nsa) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to expressing God’s love to orphans and highly vulnerable children, particularly in Ghana and Zambia, Africa.
Our Mission
Agape Global expresses God’s love through compassionate action, striving to bring comfort, support, healing, and growth to those in dire need throughout the world. We’re continuing to operate our thriving, village-style havens for orphans and the vulnerable in Ghana and Zambia, Africa. We place children in nurturing families and provide access to education and holistic programs to help transform their lives and realize their potential. While Agape Global has the ability to bring our village model to other areas in need, we’re also expanding our scope of service by working to answer additional challenges throughout the world. However, these needs may look — be it poverty, hunger, or an array of other issues — we deliver a solution-based response wrapped in faith, hope, and love.
Our Vision
We celebrate each child and have created an environment where they can learn and be nurtured so that their full potential is realized. We strive to transform children’s lives by offering hope, instilling values, and providing a sense of purpose.
Our work is centered around the belief that “it takes a village to change a generation.”
What We Do
We believe that children belong in families. Agape Global has built two sustainable models called the Village of Hope in Ghana and the Village of Joy in Zambia for orphans and the vulnerable to be placed in families where they will thrive and realize their potential. We aim to raise future leaders and instill hope back into the hopeless. We believe that changing the world starts with changing the life of one.
Where We Work
- New York City, United States of America
Headquarters Office - Ghana, Africa
Village of Hope - Zambia, Africa
Village of Joy
Our Programs
Agape Global’s programs are designed to give our children a holistic approach to a healthy and balanced childhood. We strive to foster each child’s God-given gifts and potential, helping them thrive to become adults of character and integrity.
Our programs include:
- Music Lessons
- Sunday Church services
- Excursions
- Counseling
- Prayer & Worship Nights
- Arts
- After School Support
- Cultural Dance
- Sports & Recreation
Our Story
The first spark of Agape Global came to life when founder Devon Leondis was 9 years old, and she dreamed of building a home for orphans in Africa. At the age of 16, after visiting Africa for a water well project, she felt compelled to make that dream a reality.
“Obviously, God had different plans and that trip ended up being something that kickstarted a larger vision,” recalls Leondis.
In 2010, compassionately moved by the poverty and need she saw, Devon gathered support from her family to create a non-profit called Project Nyame Nsa, which means “God’s helping hands” in Twi, a language commonly used in Ghana, Africa.
After partnering with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Project Nyame Nsa was able to construct Village of Hope, a haven for orphans and the vulnerable in Ghana, which opened in July 2016.
Village of Hope is a non-traditional model, which places children — those without living parents, others coming out of human trafficking, and infants given up at birth — in loving homes located within the village, each with its own foster mother and siblings. The children experience a faith-filled, enriching program, which provides a holistic approach to a healthy and balanced childhood. Through education, counseling, the arts, faith-based services, and more, Village of Hope taps into each child’s God-given gifts and potential to help them thrive to become adults of character and integrity.
The life-changing success of Village of Hope inspired Project Nyame Nsa’s expansion into Zambia with an identical program, Village of Joy, which opened in 2021. They care for 100 orphans and vulnerable children in the Village of Hope and Village of Joy programs, in an effort to raise future leaders and instill hope back into the hopeless.
“The core and the heart of what we desire to do is bring these children in, care for them, place them in loving homes, and raise them with skill sets and opportunities for a successful future,” Leondis says.
The organization’s continuing belief is that changing the world starts with changing the life of one. Now known as Agape Global, Project Nyame Nsa’s original vision of change continues to grow and evolve.
“The meaning of Agape is so beautiful, and I think it really speaks to what we’re doing and what we’re providing,” Leondis explains. “And what we always want to do is just display the sacrificial love of Jesus to a broken world that is in need of so much love and care and support. So that’s the reasoning behind, as well as serving as a bigger umbrella to all the different things we want to be a part of.”
While Agape Global has the ability to bring its village model to other areas in need, the organization is expanding its scope of service by working to answer additional challenges throughout the world. However, these needs may look — be it poverty, hunger or an array of other issues — Agape Global delivers a solution-based response wrapped in faith, hope, and love.
“Our mission is simple,” Leondis says. “It’s just love in action. Love is not so much an emotion, it’s not a feeling. To love someone, to be there for someone, it requires action, it requires movement, it requires sacrifice. So, how do we display Agape Global to the world? I truly believe it’s moving in a selfless love that is an active love. If you see a need, you’re responding to that need by whatever that looks like in different parts of the world.”
Leadership
Board of Directors
Devon Leondis
Devon is the Founder and Executive Director of Agape Global (formerly Project Nyame Nsa). Devon graduated in May 2016 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a Minor in African Diaspora studies. She relocated to Ghana in July, and remains in Ghana today to oversee the work and become intimately involved in the lives of the children and staff.
Steven Leondis
Steve is the CEO of Horizon Air Freight in New York. He graduated from Yale University in 1983, has served on multiple school, church, and charitable foundations, and started a non-profit in 2006 to help at-risk teenagers in Long Island, NY.
Scott Knuckles
Scott is Vice-President of Stock Plan Services for Fidelity Investments. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University (1994), he also has an MBA from Boston University. Scott has a great passion to help “at risk and vulnerable” children, currently serves as leader in church and prayer ministry, and has volunteered on many humanitarian mission trips.
John Petras
John is Co-Founder and Managing Principal at RockFarmer Capital, where he has overseen investments, asset management, and strategic planning since 2006. He is very skillful at identifying a property’s potential and ensuring its success over the long term. He is also the former president of the Westbury Business Improvement District and sits on the current board of the Hellenic American Education Foundation. He holds an MS in Finance from New York University and a BS in Accounting from Long Island University/CW Post. He is married and has three lovely daughters.
Brian Reilly
Brian is Managing Director and Head of US Equity Capital Markets for Barclay’s. A graduate of Yale University (1985) and Yale Law School (1992), he is an active leader for the Manhasset School District, Indian Rock Foundation, and many other charitable organizations.
Operational Trustees
Yao O. Osei
Yao is a lawyer by profession and has been a career diplomat until his retirement two years ago. He served as a diplomat for Ghana in several countries including South Africa, Rumania, and UN – New York and Canada.
Francis Osei
Francis boasts a professional background in Chemical Engineering and further education in Organizational Leadership at Azusa Pacific University, CA. He currently serves as the National Director for CBN-Ghana and also oversees the ministry of Alpha Ghana as a volunteer.
Devon Leondis
Devon is the Founder and Executive Director of Agape Global (formerly Project Nyame Nsa). Devon graduated in May 2016 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a Minor in African Diaspora studies. She relocated to Ghana in July, and remains in Ghana today to oversee the work and become intimately involved in the lives of the children and staff.
Steven Leondis
Steve is the CEO of Horizon Air Freight in New York. He graduated from Yale University in 1983, has served on multiple school, church, and charitable foundations, and started a non-profit in 2006 to help at-risk teenagers in Long Island, NY.