Research over the last few years suggests that Christians across the UK are more likely to give money to charity than anyone else. It’s not surprising, then, that the UK Church has a long history of supporting orphanages, with the intention of helping some of the world’s most vulnerable children.
As the world comes to the realisation that orphanages don’t actually protect children, but are proven to harm them, Christians like you around the UK are asking whether their selfless generosity of building, funding and visiting orphanages is starting to do more harm than good.
In close partnership with Dr Krish Kandiah and Home for Good, the charity he founded to help find families for young people in the UK care system, Hope and Homes for Children is helping to demonstrate that orphanages are no longer necessary. By carefully redirecting your generosity and support away from orphanages and into family and community-based alternatives, you and your church will help us take a huge leap forward towards the day when every child can grow up in the love and protection of a family.
Read Krish’s article, ‘Why time is running out for orphanages’, in Premier Christianity magazine online.
Despite 100 years of scientific research showing how orphanages damage children, an estimated 8 million children worldwide are still confined to loveless institutions. What are the four main reason why children end up in orphanages?
Orphanages actively contribute to family separation by providing a one-size-fits-all response to deeper societal problems, which are left unaddressed. How does the very existence of institutions instigate family separation?
There is no such thing as a good orphanage. If we continue to support them, orphanages will continue to develop and thrive as businesses that can commoditise and exploit children. Kate Adams, Senior Policy and Strategic Relations Adviser, explains why.
No child is ever too poor, too sick, too disabled to be loved. We work tirelessly to strengthen families facing desperate challenges, helping them to stay together—even through the hardest of times. With your support we can keep children out of orphanages and make sure they grow up in the care and protection of their own family.
Every child needs someone who is there for them, believes in them, loves them. The bond between a child and their family is vital for their development. Orphanages rob children of this vital bond. They are damaging and they are unnecessary. More than 8 in 10 of the 8 million children confined to orphanages today have family who could care for them, if only they are given the right support.
An orphanage is never the solution for any child. Decades of evidence shows that orphanages damage children’s development by depriving them of love and hope. In fact, every three months spent in an orphanage before the age of three can stunt a child’s physical and cognitive development by one month. After six months, these children are at risk of never recovering.
When it comes to volunteering in orphanages, well-meaning people risk unwittingly harming rather than helping children.
Your generosity can help bring us closer to a day where every child grows up in a loving, stable family.
Sign up to the Homecoming project: a new Christian initiative run by Home for Good in partnership with us and other global experts.