An Alternative to Orphanages?

Rural Swaziland

Centre d'Accueil, Bamako

I have visited over a dozen different “orphanages” by now in Mali, Ethiopia, D.R. Congo, and Uganda, seen rural orphanhood in Swaziland, and no matter how impressed I may be with a specific place I am always left with the same pervasive feeling: There must be a better way. What is the best way to care for orphans and vulnerable children who have been left on their own?  Placing children in local adoptive families is ideal, but where are all the parents who are willing to adopt?

By 2010, sub-Saharan Africa will be home to approximately 50 million orphaned children.  Although the number of orphans is slowly decreasing in Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean, it is drastically increasing in Sub-Saharan Africa.  About a third of these children are orphaned as a result of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Orphan villages seem to be all the rage these days, in an attempt to provide more individualized care to children.  See: SOS Villages, Rafiki Villages, Restoration Gateway, and New Hope Uganda.

The concept of an SOS Village began in 1949 with the vision of an Austrian man named Hermann Gmeiner.  Gmeiner started the first village for children in Imst, Austria to help those who lost their homes, security, and families as a result of World War II.  Today, there are over 450 SOS Villages serving 132 countries and territories.

SOS Villages are based on four fundamental principles that Gmeiner believed every child requires: a mother, brothers and sisters, a house, and a village.  Children are placed together in families with up to ten children, a “mother”, and an “aunt”, all in a house that is modeled after the middle-class lifestyle of the country in which it is located.  The houses are constructed adjacent to one another, creating a small village that becomes a part of its wider surrounding residential area so that children can become integrated into community life outside the SOS Village.

Another organization I have been struck by here in Uganda is Dwelling Places, which works to rehabilitate and restore street children.  They actually work not just to care for the child but for the child’s parents and family for the cases in which a family exists.  If a child’s family member can be found, the potential for reconciliation with the family is researched and parents are provided with counseling and income-generating possibilities to better equip them to care for their children.  Once the family has been empowered to provide a safe and loving environment, the child can be resettled back into their family.

Better solution?  Maybe.  I don’t have any answers, but I will keep searching.  I do know that every child has infinite potential if given the right opportunities, but because of the failure to see the image of God within each one of us, people have become the most wasted resource on this planet.

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!  See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…” Isaiah 49:15-16

SOS Village Sanankoroba, Mali

Addis Ababa Foster Home

Don Bosco, Goma, D.R.C.

Grieving Children

Psychological counseling is a common support system used in Western countries that is often ignored and undervalued in many parts of Africa.  This can be disastrous in societies supporting former child soldiers, victims of genocide, and children who have already been exposed to tragedy at too early an age.  One place aims to change this stigma against children being able to share their feelings in a therapeutic setting by offering both a safe place for discussion and creative expression.

The New Hope Center for Grieving Children began with the vision of a woman from Sweden who saw the need for children in Africa to heal from traumatic events in their past.  One center began in Rwanda for children facing tremendous loss after the 1994 genocide, and now a second center in Goma provides similar support to children who have lost parents, usually due to violence.  Children who are sponsored are provided with school fees through the center, and after school they can come to the center for group counseling with trained adult volunteers, playing with toys, sports, drawing, playing musical instruments, and singing together.  Children find support not only in the concern of caring adults who take the time to listen to them, but they find solidarity in socializing with other children who have faced similar situations in knowing that they aren’t alone.

Abraham

Abraham is a 9-year old boy who has lived in Addis Ababa for the past 4 months. He moved to the city from Wolaita, a region in the southern nations, to try to make money and go to school. Like so many other boys, he works by shining shoes on the street. His father died, and his mother married another man and still lives in the south. Every day he goes to sleep in a tiny room about 5×8 feet that he shares with 5 other boys, ages 12, 11, 10, 7, and 6. The boys each chip in for the rent that is equivalent to about $14 a month. They have one small bed, but constructed some mattresses out of paper and bags that hang on the ceiling and are put out on the floor at night. They have one small bag of belongings: a few clothes, etc. and they share everything with one another. Hanging on the walls of the room are some cloth and a few pictures ripped out of magazines and newspapers.

Every morning Abraham wakes up early to walk about an hour from his room in the Somali suburb to the center of the city where he and many other boys work. He makes about $1 a day shining shoes, and usually spends about 50 cents on lunch that consists of injera bread and some potatoes. He has not yet found a school, but is eager to learn and planning on starting as soon as possible. My last couple weeks in Addis, Abraham started coming to our office each day to wash one of our cars to earn money. In addition to money, he receives bread, tea, and the love of our staff. He constantly carries around a notebook, asking people in the office to write out math problems for him so he can practice. His life is nothing unique compared to other street children in Addis, maybe even typical. But he is special. He has a loving, servant heart, and his face would light up every time I came to the office to talk to him, searched for him on the street outside the mall, and gave him a hug. I know that God can use him to bless so many others as he has blessed me if he is only presented with the right opportunities. Such kind of love does not go unnoticed.

Mama Haregewoin

Haregewoin Teferra was thrown into the profession of “Mom” long after she had her own two daughters. I was so blessed to come across the book about her life, There is no me without you by Melissa Fay Greene, just before I traveled to Ethiopia. The book tells the story of how Mrs. Teferra was asked by the church to take care of a few children after one of her own daughters died of AIDS at a young age. Reluctantly agreeing to risk pouring her heart into more children, she ended up discovering a calling that continues to shape her life today.

Now, the Atetegeb Worku Memorial Orphans Support Association named in honor of her late daughter has two different houses, one with over 40 HIV+ children and the other with almost 10 other children, where Mrs. Teferra also lives. After going in search of her house, I was privileged to spend the day with Mrs. Teferra at the HIV+ house, in awe of the beauty of the children there and the care they were receiving, despite all the tragedies that life has brought them. Learn more at http://www.thereisnomewithoutyou.com/