When thinking about Africa and its children in need, Western culture has an obsession with the idea of orphanages. Perhaps it is rooted in our beliefs about God. The goal of Christian missionaries in Africa is essentially to convert the Africans to accepting a Christian system of beliefs, namely, a belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. There is no better way to accomplish this goal than through the children. An institution that separates children from their communities can teach those children whatever system of beliefs it wants. Hence, we see the idea that orphanages are a way to construct model individuals who are firm believers in Jesus Christ. It seems as if every Christian orphanage receives its funding from appeals such as “working to spread the Gospel” or creating children that “demonstrate strong Christian values." If the only goal of missionaries is to win souls, it makes sense to stop examination of the issue of orphan care after the initial mission process. The orphan care crisis is much more complex than constructing an orphanage and teaching the children to sing "Jesus Loves Me" [or parts of the catechism]. Unfortunately, the examination of orphanages ends at the fact that the children will be raised as Christians, limiting examination of the actual impact of the institution. It is clear that halting the critique of orphanages by the western Christians has led to the reinforcement of stereotypes, the damaging of children, and the creation of more orphans. Orphanages stir up an image that invokes the colonial and pre-colonial stereotypes of Africans - pagans in need of the white man’s religion to become civilized.
With the best intentions, churches pump their congregations full of pictures of suffering abandoned and orphaned children. These pictures are used, quite successfully, to trigger an emotional response that opens a person’s heart and wallet. Pictures are shown of sad, dirty children sitting in filth with flies on their faces and snot running from their nose. These pictures are followed with those of a nice building – an orphanage – where dozens of children are running, smiling, and playing. Of course, some children must be pictured with the white people who came to save them. This image, repeatedly portrayed in churches, on university campuses, with television commercials, and throughout fundraisers, damages the very people it is intended to help. Regardless of intentions, this dehumanizing rhetoric promotes a racist image of do-nothing Africans whose children are saved by the gracious white do-gooder. The reality could not be further from the truth.
A statistic that is almost never mentioned is that 90% or more of orphans are caught in the “community-safety net” (Roby, 200). In other words, the extended family - aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, and friends – provide care for children who have lost their parents. The remaining 1-10% make up child-headed households, street children, and those in orphanages. In fact, the traditional system in many African cultures naturally absorbs children whose parents have died.
Dr. Chipfakacha of the World Health Organization in Botswana wrote an article comparing pre-colonial and post-colonial orphan coping mechanisms and stated, “Of significance however, is that the ‘orphan care’ concept is totally foreign to African cultures” (Chipfakacha, 2). The author then elaborates on the kin-based system that absorbed children into homes of the extended family in the case of parental death before colonialism. The pre-colonial system had a number of advantages, namely, “no stigma as none of the children could tell who was an orphan and who was not”, “the orphans grew up in a complete family,” and “there was self reliance and not dependence on some one else” (Chipfakacha, 4). Furthermore, delocalizing forces such as smaller family units and migration are weakening the “traditional indigenous institutions” that are supporting “orphans, widows, and other vulnerable members of the community” (Nyambedha, 520). Orphanages are undermining the system that is already naturally in place. Instead of supplying resources to community-based organizations, local chiefs and community leaders, and working to strengthen the orphan support system already in place, strategies were imposed that led to their weakening. Westerners bought land, constructed an orphanage, and soon they were drawing children away from the local community safety net.
When justifying orphanages, the talking points are very similar. “First, if the parents die, the extended family should take the child in. Second, the community should take them in. But, if the child falls through these two defenses, they are taken to the orphanage as the last resort.” Though it makes sense in theory, the outcome is drastically different. Orphanages overwhelmingly appear to be supply driven, meaning that their construction is determined by those who have the desire to build them regardless of demand. The construction of an orphanage draws children regardless of whether or not they were children without caregivers. In Children of AIDS, a community member is quoted as saying “When orphanages open, like a vacuum, they soon fill up” (Guest, 87). It was not as if there were hundreds of children on the street, naked and starving, waiting to get into the orphanage. The children instead came from the homes of their grandparents, aunts, other extended family members, and friends who either were attracted by the high standard of living offered by the orphanage, or were pushed by poverty-stricken relatives. The current system is ripping a hole through the community safety net - the very thing that should be strengthened. For example, the number of orphanages in a country appears to have more to do with the stability of the country than the magnitude of the orphan population. Instead of focusing on the self-proclaimed last resort, the obvious question should be, “What is being done to reinforce the first two defenses?” The West has been pouring money into an orphan care “solution,” that only addresses 1-10% of orphans and undermines the first two lines of defense. Unfortunate as it is, impoverished children with little resources will be attracted to situations where their material standard of living appears to increase. This puts the lives of thousands of African children in the hands of foreigners who continue placing them in orphanages. The accepted belief of orphanages is spreading across Africa as well. More and more Africans now believe that orphans belong in orphanages. This mentality will certainly weaken the number of families who foster children.
Instead of working harder to support more children and stretching scarce resources even further, many Africans now have the incentive not to take care of orphaned children. An article featured in the New York Times highlights this saying “children placed in institutions are often seen as the lucky ones” (Dugger). New reports by UNICEF indicate that poverty, not parental death, is the leading cause of orphanage admittance (Dugger). Instead of the church addressing core issues of poverty, it is building poverty shelters for children. Orphanages are such a large part of the perception of orphan care, that half of the BBC article covering Save the Children’s assertion that, “At least four out of five children in orphanages around the world have a living parent” was devoted to people who rejected the claims (“Most 'orphans' have a living parent, says charity"). Whatever the truth, it is hard to deny that large sums of money flow to orphanages and little - if any - flows to families. The New York Times argues, “But even as orphanages have sprung up across Africa with donations from Western churches and charities, the families who care for the vast majority of the continent’s orphans have gotten no help at all, household surveys show” (Dugger). Ironically, the West is building orphanages for children it claims have no caregivers, drawing those children away from their caregivers, and unintentionally discourages other caregivers from taking in children.
Hundreds of scenarios could be supplied, but the conclusion is the same: Orphanages weaken the community safety net. Indeed, the actual quote from a orphanage website illustrates the point perfectly,
As the guardians came we tried to explain that this money is meant for the children and won’t be paid if they are not staying at the children’s home, but we couldn’t succeed. Subsequent, we decided to wait until the school will open again since all of them cannot afford school fees and food so we hope they will recognize that the children’s home can provide them better with education, food and a better environment than the slum (Hegemann, 3).
The above quote admits that the children have guardians who care about them and are willing to take care of them, but they will only receive help if they are living at the orphanage. These are children who could be growing up with a family in their community, but are drawn away by the “children’s home.” This “home” is not a last resort, but a feel-good opportunity for westerners, a line on a resume for foreign volunteers, and a job opportunity for locals. This orphanage, and so many others, is actively drawing children away from the community safety net. They believe that the “safe haven” they offer is a better alternative for children living in the slums. Instead, this group would be better to offer boarding school that provides free schooling to orphans. The caregivers should not have to choose between feeding and educating a child they care for or letting the child go to the orphanage. There is a middle ground – helping the child with the caregiver at the present location. Ministries that work to pay the school fees of the children where they are and support the family in the care of that child seem to have the best approach. If the logic is correct of the aforementioned orphanage, then all children from poor families should be removed and placed in institutions. Explained this way, most people would be repulsed by the idea of rounding up children from their caregivers based on income.
Orphanages certainly have an unmistakable donor appeal. When mission trips arrive, they can hand out food and toys at one central location. They have the opportunity to see all the “happy” children with “no parents” and take an excessive amount of pictures. Having children gathered in one location is the ideal setup for a sponsorship program, where the West’s monthly donation is suggested to sustain the life of Africans in need. As opposed to foster care, where the large group of white people would have to travel around from house to house and witness a rather boring site: one or two children in a home living a quite average African lifestyle in a family setting. The children might share a bed with other family members and not have running water, which does not impress most donors. Westerners see how they raise their own children and decide that is the standard by which they will judge the care of African children. Thus, measuring by a Western standard, a person who takes a two-week mission trip would think that orphanages were providing better care than those in homes with families.
Though it would take pages to expand on the negative effects of institutionalized care on children, Westerners still believe that children are better off in orphanages. This is related to both how they construct African children and all those who are impoverished. It seems as if almost every church is supporting an orphanage somewhere in Africa. Without an African “mission,” the church would almost seem incomplete. In fact, this is why the accepted beliefs concerning Africans are so dangerous. People who have not studied the orphan crisis in Africa and who know little about African cultures are shaping the policies that are responding to this crisis. Orphanages are so widely accepted as the “default” response to the problem of orphans, that they are replicating and expanding. Part of their popularity derives from the ease in which the project can be accomplished. It is much easier to monitor children in one building than across a community. It is much easier to supervise staff and purchase food for children living in one location, rather than across a community. It is much easier to isolate the surrounding community than to engage it. Part of the reason that community-based solutions have received less help from Westerners is because they are indeed harder to manage. Their progress is much more difficult to define than the construction of a building and how many children are now living in it. As mentioned earlier, foster care does not have the orphanage donor appeal. On top of all these complications, there are repeated instances of Africans who are manipulating the system for their own financial benefit. This further reinforces the perception of Africans that continues to hinder real progress. Most Westerners do not have the necessary understanding or will to implement such a project. Thus, we continue to see new projects and campaigns by churches to fund orphanages.
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