"Adoption is not the answer to HIV/AIDS in Africa. Adoption rescues few. Adoption illuminates by example: these few once-loved children -- who lost parents to preventable diseases -- have been offered a second chance at family life in foreign countries; like young ambassadors, they instruct us. ...
'Adoption is a last resort,' I would be told in November 2005 by Haddush Halefom, head of the Children's Commission under Ethiopia's Ministry of Labor, the arbiter of intercountry adoptions...'I am deeply respectful of the families who care for our children,' he said. 'But I am so very interested in any help that can be given to us to keep the children's first parents alive. Adoption is good, but children, naturally, would prefer not to see their parents die.'"
People often ask us what we are doing for the orphan victims of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. Sometimes its hard to answer, basically, that we aren't doing anything for the existing orphans. Thankfully, there are many other organizations, churches, and individuals raising money and reaching out to take care of orphans. Our focus is on the less apparent side - taking care of HIV-positive parents and enabling them to live 20 or 25 years to raise their children themselves. Right now there are about 800 current CARE for AIDS clients, representing at least 2,500 children. Two thousand five hundred children who won't have to experience what it's like to be an orphan.
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Great thoughts. I agree that we'd all hope that adoption (other than spiritual adoption) would not be a huge need. Sometimes this scenario seems a bit like the chicken and the egg, with one key difference: parents do come before children. But a long-term vision to help parents with HIV/AIDS doesn't sell as well as orphans...Keep up the good work brother!
ReplyDeleteHi Nick
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I have not kept as up to date on your blog as I would have hoped. However the thoughts expressed in the book you are reading are I believe correct.
The organisation I work with in Australia started supporting orphans providing food, school fees etc. Given there are 18M orphans in Sub Saharan Africa it is an endless need.
In recent years our programs have focused on development by aiming to assist familes get HCT so they can live with HIV and raise their kids themselves. We are also supporting Youth Life Skills programs to assist kids get the message that they are special in God's eyes and that the situations they are in do not mean they need to stay in that situation.
Your return home will be difficult as what has become normal is challenged by the culture you return to. God bless