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10 Things You Should Know About Orphan Ministry

by Craig Greenfield  
7/13/2007 / Missions

Several years ago I moved into a Cambodian slum with my wife and began to get more involved in caring for the children who were being orphaned by AIDS in our community.

After a lot of research, mistakes and false starts we established a ministry that has now reached over 1000 orphans. You can read the story of those years and the innovative ministry that resulted in "The Urban Halo - a story of hope for orphans" (for more info and articles see www.urbanhalo.org)

In my postgraduate research I interviewed hundreds of orphans and visited numerous orphan ministries, distilling my results and observations into a few key principles. So, here are the top 10 things you should consider before embarking on any orphan ministry:

1. Don't even think about building an orphanage.
Children taken out of their communities are raised in situations which do not properly prepare them for life as an adult. The difficulty arises because children in orphanages are subject to the routines, procedures and administrative needs of the institution, serving the needs of the home for order, efficiency and conformity. There is an almost complete loss of independence. This is in stark contrast to the normal patterns within a family home and causes serious problems when reintegration into society becomes necessary. In short, children in orphanages are deprived of the life skills that they would learn growing up in a family and find it hard to cope with life outside the institution. In other words, institutionalization stores up problems for society, which is ill-equipped to cope with an influx of young adults who have not been socialized in the community in which they will have to live.

2. Research shows orphanages have an overwhelmingly negative psychosocial impact on children.
The majority of the orphan studies conducted over the past decades show that residential care, the care of orphans in orphanages or children's homes, has a negative effect on the psychosocial development of children. For example, children in orphanages demonstrate a significantly increased level of social maladjustment, aggression, attention demanding behaviour, sleep disturbance, extremes of over-affection or repelling affection, social immaturity and tendency to depression.

3. If you want sustainability, keep children in their own communities.
From an economic perspective, according to Save the Children, the cost of supporting a child in an orphanage is about twelve times the cost of support in a community based care program. The high costs associated with residential care, coupled with the fact that most residential care facilities are now located in the developing world, mean that resources must be sourced from outside the country. This heavy dependency on major external funding is a cause for concern. The UN points out that, "orphanages for 14 million orphans simply cannot be built and sustained". A more sustainable solution is to strengthen communities to care for their own orphans.

4. Make Community Participation a Priority.
The first aspect of community participation that should be considered is the participation of the children themselves. Research suggests that a child placement preference is based on where they feel they will be loved and best taken care of, whereas parents and other adults prioritise economic factors in decision making. Seldom do the adults consult the children. Communities should be given the dignity of caring for their own orphans. This relates to what has been called the "iron rule" of community development, "Never do for someone what they can do for themselves."

5. Strengthen the Support Network of the Orphans.
In the community, children are able to stay together with their siblings (a tremendous source of solace and support) and maintain a sense of connectedness with their extended family, their neighbours, their childhood friends, their culture, their heritage and their land. Do what it takes to keep orphans in that support network and strengthen extended families.

6. Poverty is never an excuse to take orphans out of their community.
Too often children are placed in orphanages because their families are too poor to take care of them. Poverty is never a good reason for a children to be taken away from their support network of family and friends in the community. Instead of using our money to build expensive orphanages, we should instead use our money to support grandmothers, aunts and foster families to care for their own orphans. Income generation projects and small business loans can also be used to strengthen families so that children can stay with them.

7. Monitor for Abuse.
Clearly abuse can and does occur in any situation. Biological parents and extended family are all potential abusers. However, is there anything inherently worse or more dangerous about abuse that occurs in residential care facilities such as orphanages and children's homes? I believe so. Few outsiders are aware or care what takes place in these facilities. As a result many situations of abuse in orphanages go unreported. Evidence suggests that children abused in institutions may have greater difficulty in reporting the abuse, escaping from the situation, or getting support from outsiders. Due to the child's utter dependence on the institution, the abuse may continue for a long time. Children with disabilities are especially vulnerable. Wherever children are living, ensure you have a child protection policy and a strategy for monitoring the welfare of the orphans in your care.

8. Celebrate and Encourage the Use of God-given Community Resources.
It is important to help communities recognize and mobilize their own God-given resources (rather than overwhelm and dis-empower them with our resources), and the greatest resource of a community is its people. By mobilizing community members (particularly Christians and local churches) to show practical compassion to orphans they incarnate the love of Christ. In Cambodia we have trained and mobilized hundreds of Christian youth to be Big Brothers and Sisters to one orphan each.

9. Consider the Property Rights of the Orphans.
In a subsistence economy, children sent away from their village may lose their rights to their parents' land and other property as well. Work closely with families to secure property rights and add children into wills before parents die, if possible.

10. Read up on Attachment Theory.
In "The Urban Halo" I briefly introduced John Bowlby's "attachment theory" which offers a partial reason for the sad impacts of orphanage life on children, suggesting that many of these difficulties result from the lack of availability of appropriate, nurturing, stable "mother substitutes" in orphanages and children's homes. The theory explains why visitors to an orphanage are mobbed by touch-hungry children. By identifying potential "mother substitutes" in the community (grandmothers, aunts, foster mothers etc.) this deep human need for the nurture of an adult can be more effectively met.

These children have lost their parents, why take them away from everyone else they know and love? For more information on community-based care for orphans and alternatives to orphanages take a look at the website: www.urbanhalo.org or get the book, "The Urban Halo".

Craig Greenfield is the International Coordinator of Servants to Asia's Urban Poor and author of "The Urban Halo" (www.urbanhalo.org).

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