End Orphanage Care & Volunteering

GET INVOLVED 9 End Orphanage Care & Volunteering ( Page 2 )

Put Children First: End Orphanage Care & Volunteering

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
FAQS
SIGN OUR PLEDGE

Comhlámh and the End Orphanage Volunteering Working Group are calling on you to help end the practice of orphanage volunteering and change how children are cared for.

Orphanage care is harmful to children and orphanage volunteering increases this harm. Children belong in families where they can get the love and attention they need.

Support our Put Children First Campaign so that more children can grow up in a family. Make an individual pledge that you won’t support orphanage volunteering or visits. Eendorse our policy asks to support global care reform as an organisation, university, college or other body.

The Institutionalisation of Children: The Global Problem

Children have a right to grow up with a family that cares for them. Yet…

An estimated 5.4 million children live in institutions worldwide, primarily because of poverty, lack of access to health and education services, and discrimination.

%

More than 80% of children living in orphanages have at least one living parent. They have extended family members and communities that could care for them, given the right support.

Children with disabilities are 17 times more likely to live in orphanages than their peers.

The Harms of Orphanage Volunteering and Care

Why Institutional Care is Harmful for Children

Research has shown that orphanage care is harmful to children, resulting in significant delays in physical growth and brain development, causing social and emotional difficulties, and exposing children to neglect and abuse.

There is also increasing evidence of the links between institutions and trafficking. Reports have shown that many children do not get the promised education or healthcare and typically gain lower levels of literacy and numeracy and fewer educational attainments than their peers.

Why Orphanage Volunteering is Harmful for Children

Reports highlight that the regular turnover of volunteers and visitors to orphanages is harmful to children’s development and wellbeing and increases their exposure to abuse and exploitation.

Orphanage volunteering, visiting and overseas donations can also sustain the ‘orphanage industry’ with institutions being set up to meet the demand from well-meaning travellers and donors. There are increasing instances of children being trafficked to populate profit making institutions.

Even well run and resourced orphanages with staff that care about the children cannot replace the love and stability of family-based care.

Voice of Care Experts

Children Belong in Families

PETER K. MUTHUI, Care Leaver and Director of Child in Family Focus Kenya talks about how children need one on one care and attention and trusting relationships, and how only a family can provide this. He shares his lived experience and speaks on why children belong in families at the “Beyond Institutional Care: Rethinking How We Care for Vulnerable Children” conference.

Ending Orphanage Volunteering: Why Care Experts With Lived Experience Are Calling for Change

SINET CHAN, Ambassador for Cambodian Children’s Trust, talks about the neglect and abuse that she experienced growing up in an orphanage; and how orphanage volunteering contributed to feelings of abandonment and to exploitation.

Children Belong in Families

KATHARINA THON, Programme and Capacity Building Officer at the OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking of Human Beings, shares her research on orphanage tourism as part of Comhlámh’s Global Care Reform – Orphanages, Volunteering, and Trafficking webinar (click the link to watch the full webinar).

VIDEO:
The Global Care Reform Movement & Recommendations to End Orphanage Volunteering

Learn why there is now a growing global movement working to keep families together and to gradually close down orphanages, replacing them with family support services and alternatives such as foster and kinship care when necessary.

This world-wide movement includes UN bodies, governments, NGO’s, child protection specialists and care experts with lived experience.

Take Action

As an Individual…

You can sign our pledge that you will neither promote nor engage in volunteering and/or visits to institutions for children and to further educate yourself around the harm caused by orphanage volunteering and institutions.

SIGN OUR PLEDGE

As an Organisation…

You can endorse our key policy recommendations to support the global care reform movement. For further information and to endorse please contact Fiachra at fiachra@comhlamh.org

ENDOESE THE CAMPAIGN