Facebook and Twitter are great ways for us to keep you in the loop about our daily news, but sometimes it is just as important that we give you a bit more detail than posts or tweets allow. How can they give you a rounded idea of the complexities of caring for 30 children or explain our outreach program? Today we wanted to use this blog to give you a proper understanding of those by discussing two recent individual cases: Glory and Fanueli.
So how do we make sure keeping families together are central to our work, and that we are doing what is best for the children?
1. Outreach Program - Providing support to keep families together at home
The central importance of families has been crucial to the way that The Small Things has expanded over the last year or so. Recognition that orphanage care is not always the most appropriate response to difficult situations led us to set up our outreach program, which helps families in need of support to keep their children at home. This may involve giving weekly food packages, assisting in finding the parent a job or whatever will be of most help.
Individual case - Fanueli
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| Fanueli smiling with his after-lunch cake |
The clearest example of the way this works is the case of Fanueli, a three year-old whose mother was struggling to care for him after his grandmother's death. He is now coming in daily to attend the orphanage pre-school, where he receives breakfast, lunch and vitamins as well as education. By helping his mother a little with the cost of living, our outreach programme has meant that Fanueli has not needed residential care. His mother is now working for The Small Things at the orphanage, where she started with us as a cleaner but will hopefully end up as a fully trained mama with a secure income.
2. When it is not possible for families to care for their child at home even with extra support
If a child has a caring parent then surely they shouldn't be growing up in an orphanage?
This is a very good question: we are glad that it was raised and want to answer it properly. We understand that you are concerned about the damaging effect of institutionalised care on children and, as has rightly been pointed out to us, orphanages as such no longer exist in most wealthy countries because they are seen to be damaging to children’s development. However, recent research has showed that institutionalized care can be significantly less damaging than living in the community if the care in the community is not adequate. Unfortunately, sometimes families or neighbours may not be able to give the child adequate care, even with our support, and it is at this point that the child may be accepted into the orphanage. For almost 20 years, our head mama watched an average of one third to one half of the children who left orphanage care at age 5 go back to the village and any living relatives and end up abused, neglected or dead within a year. The risks are not just theoretical, and this was the documented status quo for almost two decades.
The Small Things is careful about the family situations of the children we take into the orphanage and committed to respecting the opinions of our local partners and the community we work in. In line with this, there is a careful process in place to assess individual children and whether they should be accepted into the orphanage.
How we decide whether it is best for a new child to be accepted into the orphanage?
- Mama Pendo, the head mama at the orphanage, is always consulted. Often it is she who is first aware of the situation and starts the process.
- Each child is evaluated by Dr. Kiwesa, the hospital’s head doctor.
- Each child is assessed by out Tanzanian social worker and Tanzanian outreach worker.
If the child is accepted into the orphanage, what do we do to keep families connected?
Maintaining contact
The recognition that families are important structures all of our work. For example, the children’s relatives are encouraged to come and visit them whenever they can - Farajah’s older sister comes to the orphanage day care center most weekdays, and sleeps with her grandmother at night, since she is old enough not to need 24/7 care. We recognise that just because a family doesn’t have the capacity to look after a very young child, this does not mean this will always be the case or that they want to lose contact. Hopefully at some point Farajah will be able to return to them, just like Neema, who was able to move back to her family last year.
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| Here's Farajah's older sister Maureen popping in for a visit. |
Visiting during holidays
We also try to make it possible for the older children who are at school to spend their school holidays with their extended families, if they are willing to host them, often with food support. For example, Isaak and Auntie are currently back with their father until the beginning of the new term, when they will return to the pilot house. Anna is with her grandmother, and Queen is with her father.
Individual case - Glory
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| Glory with Victoria, one of our volunteers |
Recently we told you the story of Glory, whose father has been struggling to look after her for nearly two years and who has recently come to live at the orphanage because he can’t give her what she needs. As a snapshot social media post, this understandably raised some concern among some engaged and responsible readers.
However, Glory's father had been made homeless and needed time to get back on his feet before he could adequately care for Glory. At her father's request, it was unanimously decided that Glory would benefit from residential care. This will allow her to receive the proper healthcare, nutrition and attention which she needs until she can be reunited with her father. He is now working for The Small Things as a security guard, which has given him an income and allowed him to see Glory regularly. We aim to get her back to her father in the long term so that she can have the family life that is thankfully still available to her.
3. Happy Family Children's Village
The importance of family is also the logic behind our larger project: Happy Family Children’s Village. We want our kids to grow up in the closest thing to a family possible, so we are structuring the Children’s Village in family-style houses, where children of different ages will grow up together as siblings with caregivers that they know well.
Thinking about what is best for the children is complicated and we are so glad that you are engaged with what we are doing. By committing to consider the impact on the wider community and the families of the children, and by working on a case by case basis, we hope that we are able to come to decisions that benefit the children the most, in the long term as well as the short.
It's great that you're so engaged with concerns raised by supporters and your care and love for the children at Nkoaranga is abundantly evident in every post. Your work is incredibly important and valuable and hard - thankyou! Fanueli and Glory are blessed to have families that care for them and your organisation to help 'stand in the gap' where the families are struggling currently.
ReplyDeleteI do have questions about why you think a 'family style' children's village is in the best interests of children who are ageing out of the orphanage? Would you consider working to build up the culture of foster care and domestic adoption within Tanzania, and even further expand your outreach and prevention work?
I ask only because, after having worked in a similar organisation in Uganda for 2 years, it is abundantly clear very early on that there are very, very few children in Africa with absolutely NO immediate or extended family willing to take them in, were resources not an issue. Cousins, 2nd cousins, grandparents, distant aunts and uncles regularly take in orphaned children or children abandoned / neglected by their parents - if they know about them. I've seen cases of terrible neglect and abuse by parents, where the immediately obvious response is to remove from family care, but when grandparents, distant cousins living far away had no idea and were appalled when they found out. In many cases extended family are not fully consulted or searched for, and children can miss out on a loving home.
Where this is still not possible foster care or adoption would seem a healthier and more stable long-term environment than a 'children's village', where, eventually, the children still age out and still don't have a secure family base of people to support and love them through their whole lives. I absolutely believe in the love the staff at TST and Nkoaranga have for the children, but within a few years the Mama of each house may have seen dozens, if not eventually scores of children pass through her 'family style' house. It's a family while they're there, and possibly one after, but by its very nature it must be only a very diffuse and incredibly large one.
And when you say "recent research has shown that institutionalized care is not significantly more damaging than living in the community if the care in the community is not adequate - I'm not sure "isn't SIGNIFICANTLY more damaging" is something to aim for. So many studies have shown clearly the damage of institutional care of children, especially long-term institutional care. Just because care in a family is not adequate now doesn't mean it will never be, as you clearly understand with how Neema and Glory have received love, care and support from your organisation and have already, or will in the future, return home. Would children from the children's village also have this option?
I truly don't mean to be critical - your work is inspiring and life-changing and it's truly incredible what you've achieved in a small time with limited resources - you really should be proud, and I admire you immensely. I've just seen children's villages in action, and though some really do offer a place of love and stability for a child, they're not a family, and I think we should all be moving as close to that for every child as we can. Obviously, in developing country contexts where social welfare systems are precarious or nearly non-existent, this is very hard. But I hope we can all at least be moving in that direction!
Hey Sarah - thanks for asking these questions. The blog was badly phrased - there is extensive research showing that severe poverty or unwilling carers can result in outcomes that are actually worse for children than a well run and caring institution. For instance, the Positive Outcomes for Orphans project, an international and well-respected research project run in partnership between Duke University and local research bodies, which actually included Tanzania in this study. To quote, "This study does not support the hypothesis that institutional care is systematically associated with poorer wellbeing than community care for OAC aged 6–12 in those countries facing the greatest OAC burden. Much greater variability among children within care settings was observed than among care settings type. Such characteristics may transcend the structural definitions of institutions or family homes. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0008169.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, we feel very strongly about listening to the voice of the community we work with. Our head Mama in particular had this vision exactly because they used to the children back to any living relative at age five. As you say, there are always second cousins, aunts, whatever - but there is no guarantee or even a very good chance that most of them have any true desire to care for these kids. Between a third and a half of children returned to the community were dead within a year. For 15 years she literally watched healthy children become abused, neglected, or dying because there was no willing and able carers. We NEVER advocate residential care over outreach care if there is a motivated family member or foster parent willing to take them on. However, that is often not the case, and we all - especially Mama Pendo - have seen enough children literally die because they were stuck in situations without able and willing carers. This is what the community is asking for in response to the problems that they face - and we believe that they deserve to have a voice.
As I said, I respect and appreciate your passion, but we have thought and studied and discussed this topic extensively, and I promise that we are doing what we strongly believe is right for these children, just as you are.