Wandering around this simple 3
bedroomed house in Embu, I was challenged by the stories of the children who
occupied the place. Beautiful and innocent children who were somehow abandoned now
sleeping 4-5 in a room with only a couple of paid staff as their family. This
was a children’s home. A small, beautiful children’s home run by well-intentioned
people, some with connections to The Salvation Army, but a children’s home none
the less (or orphanage if you are a donor!). Well cared for and adequately fed children thrown
together and all presenting (at least to the potential donors) as some sort of
Annie-esque happy band of brother/sister type gang.
Make no mistake, most children’s
homes are places where there is an excellent standard of care, to use social
work parlance. But also make no mistake, most children’s homes are task
orientated places of routine, where the care of the children is centred on the
functioning of an effective, efficient and controlled residence rather than
attending to the individual needs of each child. Family intimacy and personal attention
is missing and whatever we try to do, nothing can replace the love and
protection of mother and father. In every children’s home I have visited and indeed
during that visit in Embu, I felt that in some ways the children were missing
out on their childhood.
It is estimated that only 20% of
children in homes or orphanages are actually orphans or ‘at risk’. This is a
startling figure and one worthy of consideration. There may be a number of
factors for this but essentially what is straightforward to gleam is that for
the 80% of children in institutional care, their closest family had felt they
would be better cared for within children’s home rather than in their family
setting. As Craig Greenfield, a man who I admire immensely wrote; ‘People are
poor. They struggle to feed their own families, let alone any extra kids that
come along if a relative dies. And so they turn to the next best solution - an
orphanage.’ Even in our time we have seen children given up to children’s homes
by single mother as an act of love, feeling their children would be better cared
for by an organisation rather than by family.
The frightening fact of the
matter is that many well-meaning churches and organisations are perpetuating
the institutionalisation of children and one wonders whether in their desire to
do something to address the problem they are causing more harm than good,
certainly in the long term.
We went on our own journey in early
2013. Based on what we saw and heard from children and communities across Embu
County, we set up a community based orphan support project in Embu. This has
been an amazing journey, empowering the families, caregivers and guardians to
support their children and make significant choices about their children which
are not purely based on their economic situation. The project also seeks to
strengthen family and community coping capacities to avoid the people feeling
that the only option is some sort of institutionalised care. Our aim was to
immerse the orphans and vulnerable children within an authentic and caring community, surrounded by their family –
whatever family might look like. The
church was also integrated into the programme so it truly became a community
holistic approach.
Alongside this we are developing
young leaders to be role models, peer counsellors and play some sort of big
brother / big sister role for those in their community. The latter was very
difficult to articulate in project proposals and we are grateful that our
partners WeSeeHope were so flexible and patient in this approach. So far, over
fifteen hundred children who would have been ‘at risk’ of institutional care (rather
than ‘at risk’ from the being an orphan or an abusive situation) have been supported
within the community by the very people that have loved, nurtured and journeyed
with them as they have started out in life. By providing skills, motivation and
economic empowerment to single parents, carers and guardians we are now seeing
income generating activities flourishing, children in education, scars healed, dignity
restored and much more.
For me and Heidie, there was
another challenge – we live right beside a Salvation Army children’s home. It
is a place I love dearly and it serves an important need. However it is a place
that needed to, and still needs change. We approached our leadership, who were
clearly shocked and concerned in equal measures that children could be placed
in our care for convenience rather than due to their pressing need. With their
permission, we started to invest in fixing our residential care for orphaned
and vulnerable children who cannot be safely reunited with immediate or
extended family straight away.
Then we wanted to try and make
the home feel like exactly that, a home. We looked at our home and what was
important to our family - new play area, fun days, making sure the essentials
like fully functioning water, a new flat screen television, a DVD library,
trips out, pizza nights and loads of toys / balls / games etc. were all
priorities and have been achieved these to some extent over the course of the
last 3 years. We have also explored the school situation (with the help of
Carla and Dan) to make sure that we give the kids the best education we can
afford and that the teachers treat our children in exactly the same way as
children coming directly from their family home. This meant a number of changes
in schools for the children, dropping one school altogether and some strong
conversations and training with the teachers where they do attend school. An
Interior Designer is now working with us on how to make the home more
child-friendly (especially the dining room), complete with lots of colours,
posters and a memory wall. We have lots of plans to continue this journey of
transition and transformation. The hope is that in the small acts of kindness,
the delivering of kindness of behalf of others, God’s love becomes real.
But this is only part of issue. Child
protection, behaviour management strategies were sadly lacking, although now in
place. Next year, we are starting our social work and support programme. This
will not be easy. Social work in Kenya is viewed, sadly, as some sort of
gatekeeping profession. However, unlike more traditional colonial embedded
thinking in Africa and with a social worker mentorship programme in place for
our new employees, we are truly believing that we can change that mind-set and
that our children’s homes need not be forever. They can be places of rescue,
respite and reconnection. So support plans, family contact visit, reintegration
conversations and healing interventions are the talk of the town now. The need
to facilitate strong, nurturing and deep family relationships for the children
in our care should outweigh our desire to look after and fix problems for
children who we see as vulnerable and poor.
As many more educated and well
researched people than me will tell you – there is no ideal solution to the
challenge of the numbers of orphans across the world, just as many Western
governments are finding there is no easy fix for homelessness or substance
abuse. I often wonder internally whether the reason why we have children homes
or indeed any other type of institution care (hostels, Lifehouses or ARCs) is
because individual Christians have lost the essence of shared experience and
fellowship with those who are locked in poverty. This brings more questions
than answers for me. For instance, am I playing
some sort of provider role for the children in the home beside us without
having to think about any of the other roles a father should provide? Do I do
as much as I can to appease my own conscience or is the welfare of the children
my first concern? Does service delivery now replace sacrificial hospitality for
Christians? Has the church lost touch with the realities of the people Jesus urges
them to serve and befriend? What I do
know now is that paying attention to process and relationships is far more
liberating and important than paying attention to the ‘product’ or ‘programme’. Incidentally, the costs of keeping 1500 children out of care is way lower than keeping around 50 people in care!
So this is not another moan about
the church or the organisation I work at –they are doing a great job in
difficult circumstances - but a challenge to my own personal commitment to
solving the issues I am facing in everyday life. I am committed to breaking
down barriers and helping people along their path to finding freedom, many of whom
are often locked in oppressive situations through no fault of their own. Building
long term relationships with the children, opening our home to the orphans, being
more creative in our response is all issues I am continually considering.
Frustration and guilt are common feelings when we delve deeper than the easy
approach of fixing things but working out what these feelings mean or what God
is trying to say is equally important. Perhaps this is the question that every
Christian should be asking themselves, whoever the poor and the marginalised
are in their community – how do I build deeper, long term relationships? Who do
I need to open up my home to? And how can I be more creative in my individual
response? Those are tough questions
rooted in my desire to respond to the biblical call to ‘give justice to the
weak and the fatherless’ (Psalm 82:3).
