The Stories : Forgotten Children

A family together - Melusi’s story

Small, hardly describes Melusi’s home. It’s tiny. He shares one bedroom with his elder brother and mother. Another family shares the other room in the house. There is absolutely no privacy. A constant stream of children pass through the house and the noise of traffic from the streets is deafening. Joy, Melusi’s mother, tries to sleep. She has just arrived home exhausted after a long days work selling tomatoes in the Bulawayo market in Zimbabwe.

Struck down by TB

‘Life used to be better’, Melusi says. But in 2005 his father, a pastor, died from tuberculosis and left the family struggling to survive. In the densely crowded and unhygienic slums of Bulawayo the disease travels fast and kills slowly. Melusi can remember his father’s last months as he wasted away, becoming skin and bones, his body racked by a deathly cough. Now his father is gone.

Keeping families together

Joy could so easily have been overwhelmed by her husband’s death and her family could have fallen apart because of extreme poverty. Many mother’s in similar circumstances in Zimbabwe abandon their children to orphanages in the hope of a better future for them. But Tearfund’s local church partner ZOE stepped in.

ZOE is providing practical support, as well as spiritual guidance, to hundreds of vulnerable families by providing business training and school fee support. Joy wraps her arm around Melusi and smiles, ‘Because of their support the future is looking less fragile. Our family can stay together.’

Have fun and raise money for Zimbawe this summer with our Make a meal of it fundraiser. Download our resources here.

Give today. €43 can pay for school fees and books for two families for one year

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Training helps Zimbabwean family beat hunger

Farmer Nicholas Ncube knows all about bad harvests. In 2002, the rains failed and so did his maize plants. He produced just eight buckets of the crop for his family of five. An average family that size needs one tonne a year. His wife and three young children only got through 2002 thanks to food donations from charities.

In 2003, he learnt about the Foundations for Farming programme (FFF) run by Tearfund partner River of Life and since then the shadow of extreme hunger has not darkened his door. FFF has taught Nicholas, who lives in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland South, to concentrate his crop production efforts on a smaller part of his land. But the results are startling – crop output is higher.

Surplus

Last year he harvested two tonnes – enough maize to fill his granary and therefore had enough food to last from one harvest to the next. He even had a surplus to sell and make some money.

The rains on which his crops depend remain frustratingly unpredictable, but using FFF techniques and spreading the timing of his crop planting means he can produce enough to get through.

Nicholas said, ‘FFF gives me hope even though I don’t have oxen to plough my fields. I am seeing that my life is changing and it’s better than those who do have oxen. That’s because I usually do have a harvest for my family and they don’t starve and I can pay the school fees and things like that.’

Training the next generation

Thousands of students have completed Foundations for Farming (FFF) (conservation farming) training. Many of these students have been orphaned and receive a stipend to complete the training. Both female and male are enrolled. It is making an enormous difference in the lives of vulnerable people enabling them to stand on their own feet.

A total of eight hectares are under cultivation and each student is assigned just under an acre of land and given training in horticulture. At the end of the first year, the crops they grow are sold and earnings are returned to the college to offset training costs.

At the end of the second year, all the students’ earnings are retained by them, enabling them to return to their home areas not only trained but with capital to start their own agricultural enterprises. To this end they receive training in how to run a business, learning about accounts and book-keeping.

The sense of hope being created at Ebenezer is tangible. It’s summed up by a sign next to one student’s crop which has the word ‘Zenzele’. It means ‘able to do it myself’.

You can help give a hope and a future

In Zimbabwe, Tearfund works through local churches and partners like Zoe. Individual church volunteers mentor individual children and their families, giving them not a ‘hand-out’, but a ‘hand-up’. Your donation will help to fund this work, and provide thousands of vulnerable children and families with the chance of a brighter, self-sufficient future. Give today.

• €45 will provide agricultural training for five church volunteers. With this training they could then help 120 orphans to farm their own food, giving them the skills and opportunity to build an independent future.
• €81 will provide orphaned families with seven chickens – providing them with nutritious eggs and food and helping them on the way to self-sufficiency.
• €119 will provide an entire community of 30 families with seeds from which to plant up to eight different crops, allowing them to diversify their crops so they are less vulnerable if a particular crop fails.
• €598 will pay to hold workshops to envision and train 60 church leaders – helping them to play a leadership role in their community’s struggles to defeat poverty.

To make a gift today, please give online, call Christine at 01 8783200 or post a cheque to Tearfund Ireland, 5-7 Upper O’Connell St, Dublin 1.

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Orphans no more - Jessica’s story

There are an estimated 100 million orphans worldwide. Are orphanages the answer?

Jessica was abandoned by her parents when she was a few weeks old. She was left to die on a rubbish dump but fortunately she was found by the staff of a nearby Christian orphanage.

I met Jessica in the orphanage when she was four years old. She didn’t smile at me or grab my arm like the other children. She sat silent and alone, avoiding any contact with people. The staff didn’t know what to do or how to help her.

A few months later Jessica was fostered by a young Christian couple who were friends of mine. I wondered how the couple would cope looking after a child who seemed so emotionally disturbed and developmentally delayed. It would be an enormous challenge for these new parents.

That Christmas I called to visit Jessica and her foster parents to see how they were getting on. As they welcomed me in a smiling girl rush up the hallway and hug my legs. It was Jessica. I couldn’t believe it. In the space of three months she had completely transformed from a withdrawn, disturbed child into a vibrant young girl.

‘God places the lonely in families’ Psalm 68: 6

There are more than 100 million orphans worldwide and the number is growing rapidly, due in large part to AIDS. The streets of Phnom Penh in Cambodia are thronged with children begging and scavenging to survive. There has been a massive rise in the number of orphanages as many Christians and others seek to help these children. But are orphanages the answer?

In Ireland, the residential home or ‘orphanage’ model has had disastrous consequences for children. Revelations of widespread sexual abuse in religious industrial schools and residential homes across Ireland have shocked us. These awful incidents happened in a developed country which has a social protection system and child protection laws. As a result developed countries have almost completely moved away from placing children in orphanages.

In developing countries orphans are potentially much more vulnerable. A report by the charity Save the Children (2008) found widespread exploitation and abuse of children within orphanages in developing countries. Of course these are worst-case scenarios.

Many orphanages, like the one Jessica was in, are extremely well run and have a team of loving staff. For many children they have meant an escape from the streets and a life of hope and opportunity. However even the best orphanage cannot replace the individual love and care that children need from a family-environment n my experience they are a second-best alternative to family.

The challenges of orphanages

Recent studies have shown that children can develop physical and psychological abnormalities arising from institutionalization in orphanages and children’s homes. These include physical and brain growth deficiencies, cognitive problems, speech and language delays, sensory integration difficulties, social and behavioural abnormalities, difficulties with inattention/hyperactivity, disturbances of attachment, and a syndrome that mimics autism.

In addition to this, given the sheer scale of the problem orphanages are not economically sustainable. UN studies have shown that the cost of supporting a child in residential care is about twelve times the cost of support in a community based care program like fostering. Since orphan numbers continue to grow rapidly and outstrip available resources, residential care is not considered a viable option for caring for the majority of orphans in the developing world.

So what is the answer? Is there a better alternative to orphanages?

I believe there is. Tearfund works with its partners worldwide to place children in local foster families where they receive the individual love and care that they need.

In Cambodia our church partner Little Conqueror’s has been able to rescue hundreds of children from the streets of Phnom Penh. Many of the local foster families are extremely poor themselves but by providing a low level of support, such as school fees, they are able to care for an additional child. Little Conqueror’s care workers conduct regular family visits to ensure the welfare of the child. These children can grow up in safe and happy environment, in a loving family.

Jessica is now eleven years old. Her memories of life in the orphanage are distant. She smiles with joy as she walks hand in hand with her parents.

It’s an incredible example of the local church in action, of Christian’s welcoming vulnerable children into their home. With 100 million children worldwide in need of a family it is going to take all of us working together to bring lasting transformation.

Please give today to Tearfund’s work with forgotten children

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More Than Conquerors

Abandoned by his alcoholic mother, Peah – who has cerebral palsy – could not speak or walk when Cambodian partner Little Conquerors first met him.

Now, he shuffles slowly on a walking frame towards his foster father, a huge smile stretching from ear to ear. ‘We love him like our son,’ says his foster father, ‘but without the help of Little Conquerors, we
wouldn’t have been able to cope.’

Thanks to their support, Peah attends a school for children with disabilities and receives physiotherapy.

‘I would like to be a motorbike driver when I grow up,’ he says slowly – as he smiles again.

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