Programs / Projects

Families for Orphans project is focusing on the following projects and programs:

Country Programs and Projects

Kenya

Bikes for Families Project

One program we are helping to pilot test is the Bikes for Families project. In this innovative project, families in several villages in western Kenya are being offered a bicycle to help them dramatically increase their family income. We are supporting those families that have agreed to care for an orphan from their village. We are evaluating whether simply providing selected families with a bicycle can increase the capacity of rural villages to care for their own orphans by increasing family incomes to more than compensate them for the additional cost of caring for the orphan. Learn more about this project here.

Jacob's Oven Project

This is an innovative project originally funded by Rebecca Bingham, Families for Orphans Director of Special Projects and named in honor of her adopted son, Jacob. The project installs commercial size charcoal burning ovens in churches and other secure and accessible locations in Kenya for mothers in the community to use to make baked goods to sell in local markets. It has proven to be a highly cost effective and sustainable way to provide these women with an opportunity to substantially increase their family’s income. Click here to learn more.

India

Our 2007 goal is to sponsor 200 orphans and vulnerable children of leprosy-affected individuals, providing their food, housing and education for one year at a cost of approximately $1,000 per child per year.

In India leprosy continues to be a devastating disease, socially as well as physically. Parents are usually isolated in leprosy colonies due to social stigma and fear of contagion. This social stigma and isolation has a devastating impact on their children. Our partner in India is Rising Star Outreach, which has built a school and housing facilities for these children. We are helping provide these children with food, housing, medical treatment, leprosy prevention medication to keep them from contracting this disease themselves, an education and the chance live a healthy and productive life.

Mozambique

There are over 1.6 million orphans in Mozambique, a country with a population of only 20 million and one of the lowest per capita income levels in the world. As is happening in many other countries, the number of orphans there is growing rapidly, mostly as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic sweeping the continent. Orphanages are filled to capacity and beyond, and it is not uncommon to see child-led families consisting of orphans who have banded together to try to care for and protect each other. We are currently working with the government of Mozambique on three projects to help place as many of these orphans as possible in families in Mozambique.

These projects are:

1. Encourage more in-country adoption by producing a documentary for Mozambican families showing the plight of these orphans in their country and highlighting positive stories of families that are already successfully caring for orphans. The government will be using this documentary in their efforts to recruit more families to take in as many of the country’s orphans as possible.
2. Conduct a pilot orphan placement program through which donors and families in the U.S. and other countries will sponsor an orphan who is taken in by a family. The cost will be $30/month and will pay the additional cost a Mozambique family incurs by taking in an orphan as well as school fees, a uniform and supplies. Some of the money is also used to help improve the family’s living standards, thereby benefiting them all. Many families would take in one or more orphans, but when the average family subsists on a dollar a day or less and cannot adequately provide for the children they already have, the cost of doing so is prohibitive. This family sponsor program is not only more cost effective than caring for a child in an orphanage, but placing an orphan in a loving and nurturing family environment is vastly more beneficial to their personal, social and cultural development.
3. Providing the annual school fee of $30 for orphans which includes paying for the required books and uniforms for one year. This will give these orphans a far better chance to live better and more productive lives.

Mexico

We are working in two orphanages close to the U.S./Mexico border to provide for the immediate needs of these orphans and to begin discussions with the government to start a family-based orphan placement program in this area and also to facilitate international adoption of these orphans.

Other Projects

Education: Develop, implement and pilot test the “I Can Soar” Life Skills Education Program in Africa.

One of the greatest contributors to family instability, poverty, and orphaned children across the world is the AIDS pandemic. An estimated 45 million people are currently affected, and more than 25 million have died. Sharon Slater, who is currently the chair of the Families for Orphans Project, helped develop and implement the internationally acclaimed “Stay Alive” HIV/AIDS prevention program. Stay Alive is aimed at younger children before they become sexually active and teaches them AIDS resistant behavior. The “I Can Soar” Life Skills Program is aimed at teens. It teaches them essential life skills, including consequential thinking, setting and achieving goals, abstinence-based sex education, avoiding AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and preparing to form stable and healthy families in the future.

The teaching goals for this program, which is being pilot tested in Africa in 2007, include helping teens, and especially orphans, to:

1. Learn how to set and achieve goals for the future.
2. Project probable outcomes from various behaviors, lifestyle choices and family structures by understaning findings from social science data.
3. Avoid AIDS, STDs and unwanted pregnancy, by learning how to apply decision-making skills.
4. Prepare to build their own healthy and stable families as adults.