Last week I got to speak at Idea Camp
about orphan care. I shared my concerns about the trend of churches
opening orphanages in third world countries instead of working at
keeping children together with their parents. I suggested that the
solution to poverty orphans (children who are placed as a result of
poverty instead of the death of a parent) should be to provide resources
to the family, instead of requiring the child to move into an orphanage
for assistance.
I shared my belief that the funds spent on feeding a child in an orphanage would be better spent funding that child’s birth family to keep them, and that perhaps we are even enabling families to abandon their kids when we show up in impoverished communities with a shiny new building with beds and three guaranteed meals a day. If the orphanage seems like the best option in town for giving your child an education and getting them fed, who wouldn’t drop their child off? I’ve seen far too many children living in orphanages who have loving, living parents.
http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/2013/09/how-christian-orphan-care-movement-may.html
I shared my belief that the funds spent on feeding a child in an orphanage would be better spent funding that child’s birth family to keep them, and that perhaps we are even enabling families to abandon their kids when we show up in impoverished communities with a shiny new building with beds and three guaranteed meals a day. If the orphanage seems like the best option in town for giving your child an education and getting them fed, who wouldn’t drop their child off? I’ve seen far too many children living in orphanages who have loving, living parents.
http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/2013/09/how-christian-orphan-care-movement-may.html