About us

Expanding Opportunity. Strengthening Families. Advancing Access to Justice.

Enhancing Children’s Lives Organization (ECL Global USA) is a Virginia-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit advancing opportunity, safety, and stability for children, women, girls, and families facing barriers to education, economic security, and access to justice.

Through community-driven programs, strategic partnerships, education, and resource navigation, we work to remove barriers that prevent individuals and families from accessing the knowledge, opportunities, protections, and support they need to thrive.

Headquartered in the Commonwealth of Virginia, ECL Global USA serves communities across Virginia and Washington, D.C., while also advancing targeted initiatives internationally. Our work is grounded in the belief that lasting change begins by strengthening individuals, families, and the communities around them.

Our programs span education and literacy; women and girls’ empowerment; family stability; legal empowerment and access to justice; economic opportunity; health and well-being; innovation and technology; and community development. Across these areas, we focus particularly on communities facing economic, linguistic, cultural, immigration-related, and other systemic barriers to opportunity.

Women, Girls & Family Stability

An important area of ECL Global USA’s work focuses on empowering women and adolescent girls to understand their rights, navigate unfamiliar systems, strengthen family stability, and connect with trusted legal and community resources.

Through accessible legal-rights education, community-based outreach, resource navigation, and referrals to qualified legal-service providers, ECL works to address a critical gap that often exists before an individual reaches formal legal assistance: recognizing that a problem may have a legal dimension, understanding available rights and protections, knowing where to turn, and successfully connecting with appropriate support.

Our work particularly seeks to reach underserved women and girls, including immigrant and refugee communities, who may face overlapping barriers involving family stability, employment, economic security, immigration circumstances, caregiving responsibilities, and gender-based violence.

Our Approach

We believe sustainable impact is built in partnership with communities. ECL Global USA collaborates with educators, community organizations, public institutions, legal and policy professionals, businesses, volunteers, and other partners to develop practical, accessible, and culturally responsive programs shaped by the needs of the communities they serve.

Whether helping a child gain access to education, helping a family connect with essential resources, or helping a woman understand her rights and identify a pathway to assistance, our purpose remains constant: to expand opportunity, strengthen stability, and help individuals and families build more secure futures.

Our Story

ECL Global USA was founded by Afghan-American human rights lawyer and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Axana Soltan on a simple conviction: the circumstances into which a person is born should never determine the limits of their future.

Having experienced conflict and displacement as a child before rebuilding her life in Virginia, Axana witnessed firsthand the transformative power of education, community support, and access to opportunity. Her later work in law, human rights, and public policy further shaped ECL’s commitment to addressing the interconnected barriers affecting children, women, girls, and families.

Today, ECL Global USA carries that vision forward through work across Virginia and Washington, D.C., alongside targeted international initiatives and partnerships.

Our Vision

A world in which every child, woman, girl, and family has the opportunity, knowledge, resources, and support to learn, belong, thrive, and build a secure future.