In 2018 Rwanda announced that they are planning to be the first country in Africa without orphanages by 2022. A nice sentiment, and I hope they will be able to get rid of all institutions by then, but they will not get the prize. Because Comoros is way ahead of them, it does not have, and never had, any residential childcare institutions.
However, with regards to countries without childcare institutions, during my work on the report ‘Alternative Care for Children Around the Globe’ (which you can download HERE), I was struck by a troubling issue: NGOs or faith-based organisations jumping in in places where there were no residential childcare institutions run by the government, to open orphanages.
In some countries, like Panama, this was even encouraged by the government. While in other countries governments do not actively encourage the private/charitable sector to open orphanages, but they do report the lack of residential childcare institutions, or the small number of them, as a short coming. Language that is likely to indirectly encourage outsiders to take action.
It is entirely true that in many of the countries where there are no, or few, residential childcare institutions, there is also a lack of other formal alternative care systems. This means that the support of experienced NGOs would be useful to help the state build up such a formal alternative care system. However, that does not mean that it is helpful to start opening institutions. As we have established, institutional care is not beneficial to children, nor is it a cheap option, nor is it easy to organise even remotely adequately.
So opening an ‘orphanage’ is really just another step – and a hurdle – on the way to developing a family-based formal alternative care system, followed by the need for deinstitutionalisation. While in the meantime causing damage to the development of the children in the institution. Not really the act of charity it is made out to be (and is often intended to be), unfortunately.
Therefore, particularly in countries where there is little formal alternative care in place (including a ‘lack’ of institutions) there should be a vigilance, both from the country’s government and from the international community, against having NGOs, faith-based organisations and private individuals come in and open so-called orphanages to ‘help’.
There is a role for us, the general public, in this too. We can put pressure on organisations not to open residential childcare institutions, by not giving them donations if they do. And by giving donations to other organisations that invest in family-based solutions, that help governments to build up family-based formal alternative care and that set up community services that help keep families together.
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