Why Help Orphans?

Adoption Helps But It's Not a Complete Solution!

Every year thousands of children are adopted into loving homes! Adoption is a wonderful option for parents who were planning to have more children anyway. Unfortunately, only a tiny fraction of children without parental care will ever be adopted. There are simply too many of them and a large number of them are not eligible for adoption due to various legal reasons.

Foster Care Helps But It's Not a Complete Solution!

In developed nations and even some developing nations, foster care is providing for tens of thousands of orphans! There are many nations where poverty and lack of social infrastructure means that foster care is very limited or non-existent. Some countries even without infrastucture have foster care homes administrated and monitored by non-profit private organizations. Unfortunately, such programs are not very scalable.

Every person ever conceived, was born with specific needs. Those needs include, critical needs such as food and shelter, security, the knowledge that critical needs will continue to be met, bonding, mentoring and nurturing which lead to a sense of belonging as well as self actualization, or self worth...the belief that one is of value to themselves and others. Children will first seek their critical needs...and the supply of those critical needs will instill a learned behavior. And then they will seek the other needs as well and the source of those needs will again become a learned behavior. For example, if a starving child learns that the most sure way to not be hungry is to steal...they will learn that behavior as a means of survival. If being for example, a child soldier, or a terrorist means that they are fed, clothed and receive attention and praise from an adult figure, again they will learn that these types of behavior bring them rewards...supplying them with their needs. In a sense they will become what they have learned in their struggle to survive and belong. Consider this article written about the Taliban. In essence, every orphan child will either perish or receive his or her basic human needs from some source...good or bad. It is up to those who have the means and the opportunity to be sure that the source is good to provide for them. If we don't, it will be the pimps, slave traders, ill-willed relatives, thieves, gangsters, warlords and terrorists that do...

No human is ever born with a guarantee of a happy, healthy life. However, there are a great many children who are born into loving homes in which they will have the chance that every child deserves. There has never been a single orphan child born, that chose or deserved their status as a child without parental care. Whether you believe it is God's will as stated in scriptures such as James 1:27, or you simply understand our inherent responsibility to care for children and protect the future for our own children, it's plain to see that the orphan children of this world are something we simply cannot ignore.

Because these children have no one, they are often the most vaulnerable to being brought up in lives of crime, sold off into slavery, sexually exploited, turned into child soldiers.They are the most vaulnerable, because they are children, these children will make choices solely out of necessity. Just like anyone, they will do what they need to survive. Thats a decision a child should not have to make at such a crucial age. We care for orphan children because, they are the future, they are vaulnerable, and most importantly, because they are children.

First we can address the obvious...things that we read and hear about in the news all the time: War, disease, poverty, natural disasters, abandonment, and accidents are among some of the leading causes. These can be directly associated with orphans by the definition of a child who has lost one or both parents. Within and aside from the aforementioned are: cultural pressures, neglect, abuse, child slavery, religious inequality, child prostitution, indentured servitude and more. These are more closely associated with children without parental care that may not be a child that has lost one or more parents. They may live with a relative or neighbor or are on the street or in the jungles and subjected to one of the afore mentioned abuses. Sometimes they simply live with a blind, ill or very old relative that loves, but cannot care for them. There are many varied combinations that contribute to a child suffering without parental care, but the results are the same, regardless of the cause. Statistically the subgroups such as these would not be counted as orphans, but by attributes associated with abuse and neglect, they are one and the same in terms of the outcome for the child. Perhaps in some ways their status almost makes them invisible and the danger they are in is misunderstood by many not familiar with their culture.

Some estimates put this number at 42,000 per day. According to UNICEF statistics, the rate of new orphan children in Asia and some other regions is falling, while in Sub Saharan Africa it is incresing primarily due to AIDS. If the above figure is accurate, 1750 children are orphaned every day, 29 per minute and nearly 1 every 2 seconds

Orphan children by definition

*143 million

Children with no parents.

18.5 million

Thousands Are Orphaned Each Day

Innocent Children Become Orphans by No Fault of Their Own

Orphan Children Will Impact Our Global Society!

Every Child Deserves A Chance At Life