Archives For Adoption

Orphanages are not the answer

March 5, 2013 — 5 Comments

In “The tragedy of orphanages,” a TED talk by Georgette Mulheir, Mulheir shares how the institutionalization of orphan care results in tragic results. Kids who grow up in orphanages are likely to experience significant social, physical, and cognitive harm.

Orphanages are also correlated with poverty, crime, and sex trafficking:

Moldova – study: Young women from orphanages are 10 times more likely to be trafficked than their peers.

Russia – study of orphans within two years of graduation from an orphanage:

  • 14 percent of women involved in prostitution
  • 22 percent hold a criminal record
  • 10 percent have committed suicide

The tragedy is that so many of these “orphans” have a living parent. Poverty is the largest driver of institutionalized care.  The solution isn’t building more orphanages; it’s finding creative ways for each child to grow up in a home.

We need to go beyond orphanages, and there’s a new book that helps us discover why and how.

You really need to read Orphan Justice: How to Care for Orphans Beyond Adopting, written by my friend Johnny Carr, national director of church partnerships at Bethany Christian Services.

Johnny’s book is a vital perspective that there is no one-size fit-all solution to the global orphan crisis.  And not everyone is supposed to adopt – but we’re all called to care for widows and orphans in their distress.

Orphan Justice encourages us to see Christ’s call for the Church—to restore the family. It enables us to realize the complexity of the problem and the many different ways we are to respond.

Adoption is one option. Providing family support services or taking part in foster care  are also alternatives.  For example, in Ethiopia, Bethany Christian Services supports community-based care. They place orphans in homes in that community—with the intention that the families will ultimately adopt them. It’s also about prevention. Helping families grow their income enables then to bring more children into their home.

Whether it’s coming alongside families or adopting a child, the Bible is clear about one thing: caring for orphans is at the heart of Christ’s mission for the Church.

For another post on orphan care, see When Building Orphanages Isn’t Enough.

 

In Adoption, Faith and Int. Development , , ,
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Who are our world’s orphans?

July 5, 2012 — 1 Comment

Recently I had the chance to present a webinar for Christian Alliance for Orphans on a topic I’m passionate about: the intersection between orphan care and economic development.

These two worlds rarely intersect – it’s uncommon to hear a talk about economic development at an orphan summit and unusual to hear a presentation about orphans and vulnerable children at an economic development conference. Yet these two worlds are more connected than we might initially realize.

What Adoptees Wish Church Communities Knew from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

The Bible is full of clear calls to care for the most vulnerable of society – and no one is more vulnerable than an orphan. (James 1:27 is just one of the many verses making an unmistakable call to care for the orphan.) I am passionate about adoption and an enthusiastic supporter of anyone working to ensure that children are raised in loving families.

But working for a microfinance organization, I also have a tendency to dig into the numbers. And when I did this with orphans, I was surprised by what I found. A large portion of our world’s “orphans” actually have a living parent.

Percentage of children in orphanages with one surviving parent. 

–Liberia: 98%

–Sri Lanka: 92%

–Azerbaijan: 70%

–Zimbabwe: 40%

After seeing these statistics, I realized that many orphans are actually sent to orphanages because their parents didn’t believe they could care for them. Because of poverty. These are economic orphans, not orphans where both living parents are dead.

So if we are serious about solving the orphan crisis, we also have to combat the underlying issue of poverty.

A Complementary Approach

If we want to have a substantial impact on the orphan crisis, we need to discover how to foster economic development and create job opportunities. In my work with microfinance, we discovered that when we equip entrepreneurs to expand their business, they are creating additional resources and investing these resources into their families. They are taking care of their children and others in the community. They are inconspicuously combating the orphan crisis.

International adoption can be beautiful, but to ensure that every child has a home, we must not overlook  the incredible talent and resources available in each local community. See Mama Atiya’s story.

For more information, see the following:

*Statistics taken from the Better Care Network (BCN)

*Photo by Jeremy Cowart

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When Building Orphanages Isn’t Enough

May 14, 2012 — Leave a comment

Reposted from When Building Orphanages Isn’t Enough.

In the below Q&A, HOPE’s president, Peter Greer, speaks about international adoption, his new book, and the intersection of microenterprise development and orphan care.

You recently spoke at the Christian Alliance for Orphans’ annual Summit at Saddleback Church. As president of HOPE, how does your work tie to the global orphan crisis?
Adoption has forever changed our family. But as powerful as international adoption is, and as much as it has changed our family, we know that it only reaches a small number of the children globally who need a home. My “day job” at HOPE helps mothers and fathers start or expand small businesses so that they can work their way out of poverty and provide for their children. My hope is that the faith-based adoption community and the faith-based development community will realize how much overlap they have in heart and desired outcomes.

What did you speak about at the conference?
According to UNICEF, there were 132 million orphans living in developing countries in 2008—132 million children dearly loved by God who need a home. But studies have also found that many children in orphanages have a surviving family member who could provide them that home. In Zimbabwe, for example, 40 percent of children in orphanages have a surviving parent, and nearly 60 percent have a contactable relative. The orphan crisis is interconnected with poverty. Parents put their children in institutional care because they don’t have enough money to care for their children. The solution isn’t building more orphanages but rather helping parents earn enough income so that they can care for their children. What parent would prefer for their child to grow up in an orphanage if they had the resources to care for them on their own? We need to broaden the discussion about the orphan crisis to include employment-based solutions that help families work their way out of poverty.

Mama Atiya

What are some examples you’ve seen of access to financial services leading to better care for orphans?
Some of the best examples I’ve seen are HOPE’s clients. I think of Mama Atiya in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who was left with no resources to provide for her six children when her husband died. A $55 loan from HOPE helped Mama Atiya break into the smoked fish business. She buys fish in bulk, enabling her to offer good prices and function as a wholesaler. Two years and seven loans later, she is the proud owner of an apartment and can afford to educate all her school-aged children. But not only is she taking care of her own children, she has also adopted four children from her community. What an amazing example of low-cost, local orphan care!

You also recently published Mommy’s Heart Went POP! An Adoption Story, a children’s book on international adoption. What led you to write this book?
When my wife, Laurel, and I were in the process of adopting our son Myles from Rwanda, our daughter asked why mommy’s belly wasn’t getting bigger like so many other mommies. We used the language that adoption causes mommy’s heart to get bigger. When we finally held our son, all the love that we had been holding came pouring out, and it literally felt like mommy’s heart popped.

We discovered that there are so few resources available for families who adopt internationally. When our friend Christina Kyllonen sent us this story after we brought our son home, we felt that it needed to be shared with many more people. We have had the joy of working with friends to bring the book to life, and our hope is that it will touch many! The funds we raise through this book all go to the rubymyles fund to help other families adopt or to support local initiatives like HOPE that help bring children into homes.

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International Adoption: Count the Costs

September 13, 2011 — 2 Comments

I’m a huge fan of international adoption. Two years ago, my wife Laurel and I had the chance to adopt our son Myles from a Rwandan orphanage. It has changed our world in wonderful ways and I can’t imagine our family without him. We’ve walked with several other friends through the adoption process and celebrate each family that conquers the paperwork and bureaucracy and finally brings their child home.

As much as I advocate for international adoption, there’s something that still deeply bothers the analytical part of me about it – the numbers. There are over 132 million orphans globally but just 11,000 international adoptions according to the U.S. Department of State. It’s clear that international adoption simply isn’t close to meeting the global needs of orphans and vulnerable children. Some of the problems with adoption and traditional models of orphan care include:

  1. Limited resources: I visited a home in Haiti housing and providing education, meals, and a way off the streets for 50 children.  But it annually cost $100,000 to run or $2,000 for one child every year, and at that expense, it would take $264 billion to house the world’s 132 million orphans. (If the US government would use all of its annual funds for foreign aid, the funds would only be able to house fewer than 10 percent of the world’s orphans).
  2. It doesn’t address one of the primary causes of orphan crisis—poverty: In the developing world, many “orphans” have at least one living parent, such as  40 percent of orphans in Zimbabwe, 70 percent in Azerbaijan, 92 percent in Sri Lanka, and 98 percent in Liberia, according to the Better Care Network.

Reason for HOPE: Thankfully, international adoption is part of the solution, but there is so much more that is happening. Local communities are actively engaged in caring for the most vulnerable and not waiting for a western solution. Consider a client of HOPE named Mama Atiya, who was widowed during DR Congo’s civil war.  Due to tradition, Mama Atiya was stripped of her land by her husband’s family, leaving her homeless, with six children to support.

After taking out a $55 loan and receiving business training, she began selling smoked fish, became a successful wholesaler at the local market, and she was able to provide for her six children and send all of her children to school.  But here’s the part of the story I find amazing… in addition to her six children, she has adopted four more children from her community. I’m thankful that there are so many women like Mama Atiya who are even more passionate than I am that each child should have a home.

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