Earlier this week, I sent out another advocacy email to a number of big organisations, with a call to action to mobilise an awareness-raising movement to prevent children being separated from their families unnecessarily. Here is that email:
As we all know, the current pandemic and its aftermath have the potential to turn into a major child protection crisis. Between children being pushed out of institutions without any preparations or support in various countries, families falling into poverty and destitution, and governments in over their heads when it comes to the crisis management of the health sector, let alone being able to find the capacity for forward-planning or looking at other areas, a massive influx of children into alternative care – which in many countries still means into institutions – is expected. And one of the pull factors in this is that in many countries people still think that children will be better off growing up in an institution than growing up in a very poor family or without access to education.
There are many things that need to happen to prevent or mitigate the problems ahead. All of it is very complicated and hard to figure out where to start or how to tackle it. Most of you will be aware that I have been working to raise awareness on these issues, and many of you have joined me in conversations about this over the past couple of months. The reason for today’s email is that out of the conversations that I have had and the situation reports that I have gathered, over the past months, a plan for a relatively simple course of action, with potentially a very high impact, has formed. And to put it into practice, I need your help.
You have been included among this email’s recipients because you were part of the conversations; because you have expressed an interest in tackling these issues; because your organisation is vocal about wanting to tackle these issues or; because I know from working together that you are able to mobilise a large network and may be interested in doing so for this purpose.
One of the things that came out of the conversations I had more than once, is that with the current travel restrictions volunteering in institutions is no longer possible. While at the same time, particularly young people have time on their hands and would really like to become active and help children in less fortunate situations. Due to their age, they are not in a position to provide financial contributions and therefore feel stuck and unable to do much. This, I believe could be a very valuable resource to mobilise for the awareness-raising that needs to be done.
As I have shared with many of you before, I believe that NOW, while people are stuck in lockdown, in a kind of frozen moment in time, is the moment to start major awareness-raising campaigns on two points.
1) Getting the message to families who are struggling financially and considering how to support their children that although it can seem like their children will be better off in an institution, it has been shown that they will do worse both in education and life if they grow up there.
2) Getting the message to well-meaning people in high-income countries that if they are serious about wanting to give vulnerable children (or ‘orphans’) a better life, they should support/set up/fund/stimulate family-strengthening and community support projects, and not rush in after lockdown to set up new ‘orphanages’.’
At this moment, no one has the time, resources or capacity to set up national awareness-raising campaigns in all the countries that need it. However, with social media the way it is being used now, we may not need to.
What I am proposing, is to work together and start a campaign to mobilise young people – and anyone else who is interested in getting involved – to spread this message far and wide on all the popular social media (Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook) either in their local language or in one of the languages that are widely understood (like Russian, Spanish, French, English etc.). It is something that would need big numbers, but working together it is possible to create a momentum that has the potential to penetrate where more formal information campaigns cannot.
It would require warming people up and providing them with a very clear message to spread. And I believe that working together, it can be done.
Let me know if and how you are willing to be part of this.
Please share this blog to help spread awareness.