While Abby and I were in Ethiopia, we met orphans and street children who had nobody to love to care for them. We also met children living in an orphanage because of extreme poverty. Many of these children have family members willing to take care of them, but they are so poor that they can barely feed themselves.
Poverty should not be the reason to take a child away from their family, but this is happening in developing countries like Ethiopia. These are desperately low-income families who, with the tiniest bit of help, could be able to raise their kids and keep the family together.
That’s the reason we started the Forever Families Project. We want to prevent more orphans and abandoned children by preserving families. Long term, we want to see more orphans be domestically adopted and stay in their homeland. This requires a holistic strategy, resources, and committed people to develop solutions.
Thanks to Jerry and Christy Shannon at Embracing Hope Ethiopia for pointing me to this blog Alama ya Kitumaini, “Sign of Hope“ I read this post, “a story (his, mine, and how the love was left out)” by Holly Mulford and it blew me away. Holly shares her inspiring story of how she saw there was a better answer to helping orphans.
Also, check out these great people we know who are helping orphans and family preservation in Ethiopia.
Bring Love In
Embracing Hope Ethiopia
ROCN