Eliminating orphanages needs courage, commitment, and you. Every penny you raise will help transform children’s lives. We want you to feel equipped with all the information you need to support us in whatever way you choose, so we hope this blog will give you lots of ideas of how you can get involved. The chance to help children grow up in families, not orphanages, is in your hands. Literally.

The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 January as International Day of Education. Today, Hope and Homes for Children wants to highlight the impact that institutions (orphanages) have on educational outcomes.

Kate Adams, Senior Policy and Strategic Relations Adviser at Hope and Homes for Children, follows up on the BBC File on 4 documentary "The Orphanage Business" and explains how everything we think we know about orphanages is a myth, and why there is never such thing as a good orphanage.

For the most part, voluntourists are well-intentioned people who are looking for an opportunity to travel and contribute something to the countries they visit. Sadly though, when it comes to volunteering in orphanages and other children’s institutions, these volunteers risk unwittingly harming rather than helping children.   

There are well over a million children in institutional care in Central and Eastern Europe. The shocking pictures of the terrible conditions in orphanages that came to light in the late 1980s and the early 1990s resulted in an enormous amount of aid being donated to the orphanages. However, it wasn’t until recently that some governments have begun to realise that, however well resourced, orphanages are harmful to children.

80% of children in orphanages have a living parent, but are abandoned because of poverty, disabilities or discrimination. There are four sets of reasons why children end up in orphanages.

Mark Waddington and Dr Lisa Cameron MP discuss why orphanages pose a particular threat to children with disabilities and what needs to be done to ensure that all children grow up in families, never orphanages.

When I was five years old, my mother died. I was separated from my siblings and sent to fend for myself in an orphanage. I spent the rest of my childhood there with no one to love or protect me. I have so many painful memories of that place and the way I felt when volunteers and tourists came to visit remains clear in my mind.

If you’re thinking about volunteering abroad, here’s what to look for to make sure your time overseas is genuinely spent making a difference:    

Last year, actor Freddie Fox travelled to Uganda with his friend Wallis Day. They wanted to see the grim reality of how orphanages operate and how Hope and Homes for Children aims to tackle this hidden global crisis.

This is Part 2 of actor Freddie Fox's blog. Today he visits several orphanages in Uganda and explains how many are run for business purposes, targeting volunteers to boost their profits.

I like to think about orphanage closures in terms of the butterfly effect; the idea that small changes can lead to much larger ones, that a butterfly fluttering its wings on one continent might eventually result in a hurricane on another.

Lesya - a social worker in Ukraine - always keeps her promises. Over the past five years, no child from her village has been placed in an institution. Here she tells the third in a series of stories about how she has managed to achieve this.

Lesya - a social worker in Ukraine - always keeps her promises. Over the past five years, no child from her village has been placed in an institution. Here she tells the second in a series of stories about how she has managed to achieve this.

CEO Mark Waddington explains the 'game changing' impact today's announcement by the UK Government will have on children with disabilities locked away in orphanages across the world.

No one makes the case against orphanages more powerfully than those who have spent their childhoods in these institutions. Read the words of Alia, a lady who grew up in an orphanage in one of the poorest areas of Nairobi, who I met when I visited there last week.

In 2017, more than forty children died in a fire at an overcrowded children’s home in Guatemala. A year on, Victoria Martin, Regional Director of Hope and Homes for Children in Latin America and the Caribbean reflects on the impact of this tragedy:

Lesya - a social worker in Ukraine - always keeps her promises. Over the past five years, no child from her village has been placed in an institution. Here she tells the first of a series of stories about how she has managed to achieve this.

Welcoming a new child into your life is always a challenge, whether you are a biological parent or a foster carer, because all children are beautiful human beings with unique personalities from the day that they are born.

Our recent audit's findings are stark. Orphans make up only 9% of all the children confined to orphanages and other facilities in Ukraine.

In January, Sarah Whiting, Director of Fundraising for Hope and Homes for Children, visited our work in Rwanda. This is her personal account of meeting one of the many families that we help to support there.

Why are there so many famous stories about orphans? On “Tell A Story Day”, we asked our Writer and Story Gatherer, Isobel Eaton, to explain:

I’ve always loved stories. I remember lying in bed spellbound as my parents read The Adventures of the Wishing Chair and The Wind in the Willows.

Lourenza Foghill updates on Hope and Homes for Children's work in South Africa and our unique pilot project to close three orphanages in Gauteng Province.

Actor & writer Ruth Jones, one of the celebrities taking part in our annual Carol Concert in Kensington, London, talks about why family matters to her.

Malcolm and Jo Rolfe have been loyal friends of Hope and Homes for Children since our earliest days. Earlier this year, they discovered a less conventional way to increase their support for Hope and Homes for Children – by going on holiday.

Hope and Homes for Children CEO Mark Waddington discusses progress towards pan-African reform of child protection.

Victoria Martin, our Regional Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean, describes the challenge we face in ending the institutionalisation of children in Latin America and the exciting developments.

Stephen Ucembe explains how he beat extraordinary odds to train as a social worker and dedicate his professional life to defending children's rights

Stephen Ucembe is our Regional Advocacy Manager in East and Southern Africa. Here, he gives a personal account of his childhood growing up in institutional care.

Dr Delia Pop, Director of Programmes and Global Advocacy, discusses the problems with voluntourism