my final product (orphans)

How to Help Orphans (20/20)

My mother died when I was two. For the next few years, until my father remarried, my brother and I were what child welfare advocates now call "single orphans." We had a father, but he worked as a pastor about 60 hours weekly and could be absent for days. I am glad there were orphanages in case we had needed them; fortunately, a succession of extended family and church members raised us.

That experience made me especially sensitive to orphans' needs. Evangelicals have a stellar track record of caring for vulnerable children at home and abroad. People of my generation grew up hearing stories of great evangelical founders of orphanages. Our heroes were George Müller in England and Amy Carmichael in India. During the last decade, numerous orphanages founded by evangelicals have sprung up, especially in AIDS-ravaged sub-Saharan Africa.

And the needs of at-risk children, including orphans, are immense. Children worldwide face severe threats due to HIV and AIDS, armed conflict and displacement, living and working on the streets, disability, abuse, and trafficking. The UNICEF report The State of the World's Children 2005 warns, "Over half a million women die from the complications of pregnancy and childbirth each year, and 15 million women suffer injuries, infections, and disabilities in pregnancy or childbirth. … Without a concerted effort to save mothers' lives, millions of children will be denied maternal love and care during childhood." Other alarming statistics: "Over two million children under 15 are infected with HIV. Based on current trends, the number of children orphaned by AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa will exceed 18 million by 2010."

While orphanages will always be necessary for some, child-welfare advocates say that as many as 50 percent of children in sub-Saharan African orphanages have known relatives who are willing to raise them at home. But they cannot afford to step into the breach.

Not surprisingly, many churches in African communities want to support families so that related children (and others) can live with them. In addition, many other families would be willing to take in orphans if they could. They know what social science studies claim: Children raised in foster families and especially by relatives fare better developmentally than children raised in even the best orphanages.

Thank God for a growing movement of developing partnerships between churches in the United States and Africa to find these homes, support them financially, and place parentless children in them.

Three organizations are especially prominent. The Better Care Network (BCN) promotes efforts by secular and Christian child-welfare organizations to improve standards of care for orphans in developing countries. Viva: Together for Children is an evangelical group that supports family-based orphan care and has created innovative foster-care models in developing countries. Willow Creek Community Church of suburban Chicago, meanwhile, is leading the way among evangelical churches in establishing supportive relationships between American and African churches.

Extended Families, Extended Blessings

Orphanages can serve as valuable bridges between homelessness and family-based care. But they should not be the end of a child's journey, unless there are no other options. World Vision helps orphans live with their extended families. "In too many cases, the institutionalization of orphans is a short-term fix with long-term issues," vice president Steve Haas says, "while its counterpart of placing unaccompanied minors in families is deemed difficult on the front end but has been found to provide profound blessings as the child matures."

OSSO (19/20)

The need...
In Ecuador there are hundreds and hundreds of abandoned and disadvantaged children living in orphanages. Often these children are in the orphanages because of poverty, societal conditions and political unrest. The good-hearted staffs of these orphanages are struggling to meet the individual needs of these children because their limited resources are strained and they can抰 provide everything they抎 like to. Because of having to deal with limited resources, when infants are not held, talked to and touched, some become socially impaired and unable to form loving relationships. This lack of attention may also lead to poor physical, emotional and intellectual development.


Orphanage Support Services Organization (OSSO) is a nonprofit charitable organization that provides volunteer opportunities to serve in orphanages in Ecuador in over 10 orphanages for the purpose of providing them with various types of support. Under the direction of our local Project Directors, volunteers (led by volunteer leaders) form the backbone of OSSO抯 orphanage support program. Volunteers provide one-on-one nurturing to these disadvantaged children who might otherwise never realize their potential. Because our volunteers provide thousands of hours of service every week in the orphanages we抮e in a unique position to understand the material and financial needs in the orphanages and are in an ideal position to see that donated funds and items are used most efficiently in the orphanages.



The children are unquestionably benefitted from this help and support, but volunteers and leaders are also benefitted and changed as they make a difference in the life of a child in need.


Where did the name OSSO come from?
OSSO is an acronym derived from 揙rphanage Support Services Organization� and is pronounced OH-so (in addition, 搊so� in Spanish means bear, so we抮e also doing a play on words with our logo). We call our logo the angel bear and feel it depicts exactly what our loving volunteers are doing while serving with OSSO: acting as angels while holding and loving little children.

orphanage care and language (18/20)

Over 88% of  internationally adopted children are raised in orphanages (Johnson & Dole, 1999).  Some countries such as Korea and Costa Rica provide foster care for a number of orphans prior to adoption.  However the majority of children adopted from China, Eastern Europe, Latin America and other third world countries will have their initial language learning experiences in orphanages.   Study after study documents that orphanage care results in growth failure and developmental delays.  Growth failure occurs frequently in internationally adopted children.  Johnson and Dole (1999) found that 48% of all children evaluated in their international adoption clinic had low birthweights, likely due to poor prenatal care.  Orphanage care after birth leads to further lags in growth.  Romanian, Chinese and Russian children raised in orphanages lose approximately 1 month of linear
growth for every 3 months in orphanage care (Albers et al., 1997; Johnson, 2000; Johnson & Dole; Miller & Hendric, 2000).  Although specific figures vary, at the time of adoption children are frequently below the -2 standard deviation for height (32 - 51% of all children studied), weight (18 - 34%) and head circumference (24 - 45%) (Benoit, Jocelyn, Moddemann & Embree, 1996; Johnson; Miller & Hendric; Rutter, 1998). Growth failure leads to more than just petite children.  Growth failure after birth is highly correlated with lower intelligence and poor language abilities. In addition to health concerns, children raised in orphanage environments are at high risk for developmental delays including language (Johnson, 2000; Judge, 1999; Miller & Hendric, 2000; Morison, Ames & Chisholm, 1995).  Reviews of medical records of orphans in Eastern Europe indicate that delayed language development occurs frequently (Gindis, 1999). Dubrovina et al (1991, as translated and noted in Gindis, 1999), found that 60% of orphanage children ages 24 to 30 months were not talking, a year later only 14% were reported to use two word phrases.  By age 3 and 4 the children were described as having limited vocabulary, receptive language delays, and unintelligible speech.  These patterns of institutional delay are not limited to orphanages in Eastern Europe.  Orphanage care was relatively common in the United States in the first half of the last century.  Province and Lipton (1962 as cited in Johnson, 2000) studied the development of children in U.S. orphanages and noted that infant speech development "showed signs of maldevelopment early, became progressively worse, and was the most severely retarded of all functions that could be measured" (Johnson, 2000, p. 141). Delays in language development are directly related to lack of adequate stimulation in the orphanage.  No matter how caring or well-equipped an orphanage appears to be, placing a large number of children in the care of a few adults is a recipe for delayed language.  I observed this first-hand when adopting my daughter from Russia.  Due to circumstances, my husband and I were not able to take her from the orphanage for several days.  Although we would have preferred to adopt her more quickly, the situation provided us with an opportunity to enter and observe her world.   We visited with her daily in the Baby Home over an 8-day period from 9:00 in the morning until she was put down for her afternoon nap.  My husband speaks Russian, which provided us with eyes and ears to fully observe her situation.  The orphanage was bright, clean, and had a 1:5 ratio of caregivers to children.  These children were well-fed, our daughter was even on the chunky side though her height, weight and head circumference indicated growth failure.  She was in a group of 10 toddlers, ages 14 to 23 months, with two caregivers providing care.  Although the caregivers were physically loving towards the children and provided basic needs, little language interaction with the children occurred.   What follows is an overview of what was observed. Children were segregated into groupings based on age and ability.  They were rarely allowed to play or interact with older children who might have served as language models.  Although two caregivers were present at all times, the caregivers changed from day to day.  During an 8-day period, there were 7 different caregivers on the day shift.  We assumed that different caretakers also rotated through the evenings. Older toddlers ate independently at small tables with no adult interaction during meals. Younger children who needed help to feed were fed by caregivers.  However the caregivers rarely talked to the children and spent most of the time talking to other caregivers. When children were carried, they were often held facing out, away from the caregiver.  This limited interactions between caregiver and child. Staff were busy attending to basic needs of the children and could not easily monitor the children as they played.  Although children were down on the floor and allowed to freely roam the room, toys were limited to small rattles and plastic blocks scattered around the floor.  When larger toys were provided, children had to be closely watched to make sure older children didn't accidentally hurt other children with them.  Because staff didn't have time to provide this monitoring, appropriate developmental toys were placed out of reach most of the time. The children spent all of their time in the orphanage sleeping/play area, or outside in a small section of the playground.  They were only taken to other rooms in the orphanage for medical checkups, or for therapies.  They were never taken outside the orphanage compound. When children were talked to, it was typically in the form of simple commands such as "come here," "sit down," "don't do that."  Across the 8 days of visits, there were only 3-4 instances of interactions where the caregivers described objects, actions, or provided other types of "teaching language" experiences.   When children have limited exposure to language, and limited opportunities to interact with caregivers, language delays result.  The children in my daughter's group were all language delayed.  These children ranged in age from 14-23 months, therefore the majority of them should have been saying a few words, and  the older children should have been saying lots of words.  Of the 10 children, only the two oldest were talking and they only produced 2-3 words each.  None of the younger children were talking.  In fact, the younger children rarely vocalized, babbled, or made any vocal noise.  Considering that 10 toddlers were in the same room, the children were eerily quiet.  These delays in language development are considered "normal" by professionals who work in the orphanages.  When the Medical Director of the Baby Home was asked questions regarding my daughter's development, she replied "of course her language is delayed, it is to be expected." Despite the lack of words, most of the children had good non-verbal social interaction skills.  They smiled when adults spoke to them, made good eye contact during interactions, pointed and reached to indicate what they wanted, pushed away toys or items they didn't want, and brought toys and other items over to adults to show and share.  When new toys were presented, such as a new Busy Box, the children were curious and spent time learning to manipulate the features of the toy.  They were also quick imitative learners.  I gave them several sets of stacking cups to play with.  Within a few minutes one child began to bang two cups together. After a few more minutes all of the older children had found two cups and were happily banging away, creating an impromptu percussion symphony (much to the dismay of the caregivers). The few children in the group who did not have good non-verbal social interaction skills appeared to have significant delays affecting more than just language abilities. Since that experience, I have traveled to other Russian orphanages and have observed similar patterns of caretaking, and language learning.  There are differences in orphanages, with some providing better nutritional, physical, and emotional care than others.  However no matter how ' good' the orphanage appears,  when children lack sufficient adult language models, appropriate play experiences, and enriching community outings, delays in language occur.
In summary, parents should expect children raised in orphanages to have mild to moderate delays in spoken language development. However, nonverbal social interaction skills appear to be less affected by the orphanage environment.  These social interaction skills should be the primary focus during the pre-adoption process.  The Pre-Adoption Questions section explains how to judge social interaction abilities when making adoption decisions.  After adoption, the focus of concern shifts to determining when and if children catch up in language abilities.  TheInfant & Toddler and Older Adopted Children sections describe typical patterns of language development following adoption.

Nicoleta's Story (17/20)

My name is Nicoleta Mandru, and I am very happy to be able to share some of the most important events in my life through this letter.

I was born on March 31, 1984, in the city of Bacau. I come from a family of 10 children, and I was the seventh child born to my parents. I lived in Botosani, at the Hand of Help orphanage, and I am very grateful, along with the other children, for the wonderful living conditions that are available there.

In 1984, my father died and my mother was no longer able to provide for us. This is how I came to live in Botosani, in this wonderful orphanage, with these wonderful people. I came here in 1996, along with three of my brothers. I thank God every day for giving me a new father and mother which show their love for me every day. They are wonderful people, blessed of God, who give their best for all the children living in the orphanage. In the orphanage, the children, along with the teachers, and the other employees are a united family.

They are wonderful people who teach the good path of life, how to have an appropriate attitude in society, in the family, and in the church of God. I went to the church, which is located on the orphanage grounds, where I sang in the choir, and enjoyed the presence of God during every service.

May 6, 2001 was a day of blessing for me. It was the day I was baptized, and the day I decided to serve my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ all the days of my life. From that day forward my life has changed radically, and I thank God for my new family in this church as well.

I consider myself a very happy and blessed person for being in this orphanage. I had everything necessary in order to be content and happy. I had food, clothes, heat, gifts, and all these I received as from the hand of God.

Through the hard work of people I have grown to love, like the teaching staff, the medical staff, and everyone else working 

there, God has molded me into a person with a new perspective concerning life, and one who has a blessed future. May

God bless them all!

I would once again like to thank God, as well as all those working with Hand of Help. Last but not least, I thank my mother Virginia Boldea whom I love dearly.

With love,

Nicoleta Mindru

Health Care at a Rwandan Orphanage (16/20)

This project was originally intended to examine an orphanage in Rwanda for evidence of malnutrition and introducing the use of growth charts so that the

staff could earlier detect problem cases to seek treatment. However, due to a needs assessment at the orphanage, the focus of the project shifted to developing a general health care plan for the children at the orphanage.  Orphans are particularly vulnerable for health problems, including malnutrition,

HIV/AIDS and other diseases of poverty. It is therefore necessary to establish and maintain sustainable health care programs for the children who will be institutionalized in orphanages in Rwanda and other developing countries. 

L’Esperance Children’s Village is an orphanage on Lake Kivu in western Rwanda.  As a children’s village
(rather than a traditional institutional orphanage), the 100 children live in one of four family units that have children of both sexes between the ages of 2 and 21.  There is a house mother for each family unit that is in charge of feeding, cleaning and the other daily needs of the children.  In addition, there is a baby house with eight infants between 20 weeks and two years old.  There is no electricity or running water at the orphanage, and most of the food is grown in the orphanage’s fields, so the diet is heavy on potatoes and cassava root.  

The components of the plan included:

1) HIV testing all of the children at the orphanage 

2) Creation of medical files to be used by visiting health professionals and which the children can take with them to the hospital or health clinic when they visit

3) Creation and stocking of first aid kits for each family unit

4) Training of the house mothers in basic first aid and wound care

5) Arrangement for a Rwandese pediatrician to make annual visits to the orphanage to conduct exams on all of the children

6) De-worming and anti-fungal treatment of the children at regular intervals throughout the year

7) Training of the orphanage staff in taking of height, weight and head circumference measurements and the use of growth charts at regular periods throughout the year

 

I am continuing to keep in touch with the orphanage.  They haven’t scheduled the pediatrician visits yet but are otherwise on schedule and

Improving Orphans Health and Nutrition Project (15/20)

Activities of the provinces’ orphanage (Social Sponsoring Centres) is dependent on the national budget, and it is difficult to improve the living conditions of the children living in this centre without additional funding. Unfortunately, the orphanage has not been able to attract much investment from domestic or foreign charities.Lai Chau is a mountainous province in the northwest region of Vietnam. It is amongst the poorest provinces in Vietnam. Prices of basic necessities are 1.3 to 1.7 times higher than the average of highland provinces. Lai Chau was also badly affected by Tropical Storm Kammuri which resulted in loss of life, property as well as thousands of acres of workable agriculture fields. As a result of the high poverty rate, lack of food and health services in these provinces, the people most adversely affected are the orphans, elderly and homeless.

Each child living in an orphanage receives an allowance from the Vietnam Government of 15 USD per month, which is 0.50 USD per day for food, electricity, water and fuel. As consumer prices are rapidly increasing in the Lai Chau province, this allowance is not enough for basic expenditures. Lacking farmland, capital, and knowledge, the orphanage is unable to improve the living conditions for the children through planting trees, gardens or raising animals.

The Social Sponsoring Centre (SSC) of Lai Chau will be caring for 100 children by the end of 2010. Most of these children are poor, have no working ability, and no income. They live on the allowance of the Government and the occasional intermittent aid from non-profit organizations.

The project aims to improve the health, life skills and livelihood of each of the children living in the centres. Each child will be responsible or 3 chickens and a small plot of land and will be trained in nutrition, raising fowl and planting vegetables through the FAITH (Food Always In The Home) Garden principle, the Chicken Principle and the CHE based life skills education program (see attached addendum for more information on the principles). It is hoped that these chickens and vegetable gardens will also provide a sustainable food source for the Support Centre.