"Sequoia Helping Hands" was formally incorporated in the US as a non-profit organization in 2003. However, work by the founder, Juni Asiyo and other members of the organization have been going on for many years. This organization was born out of a desire to help the many orphans and vulnerable children left behind by the deadly AIDS disease.

Sequoia Helping Hands attacks the disease at the grassroots level by increasing AIDS awareness to the children so that they remain HIV-free, providing health, shelter and food so that they children can grow into healthy adults and assisting the children in their education so that they can become self-sufficient adults.

AIDS is a wide spread disease in Africa and the estimate is that there are almost 30 million people that are HIV positive. This has led to poverty and famine in many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa as more and more people are caught in the throes of the disease and are unable to work. The AIDS epidemic combined with malaria has left a large number of orphans, vulnerable children, and single parents or elderly grandparents to fend for themselves. These children have increased exposure to the disease.