!dea Camp - Preemptive Orphan Care and Development

These notes are from what was for the me the real "out of the box" sessions...creative ideas that hit to the heart of the orphan crisis internationally and made me realise that by meeting so many other needs, we preemptively stop there being more orphans. 

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COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

// Work to rebuild communities so that the children there can have a greater quality of life

// One family, who had adopted two children from Ethiopia, decided that they wanted to give back to the beautiful country that gave them two beautiful children

// This family are raise funds to transform the village - 27 water points, 3 school buildings, a library, a health clinic, and vet clinic as well as a bridge for the village of 6000.

//We need to think long term in transformational development

// Women in community desire to take care of these children – child sponsorship enables this to happen

SUSTAINABILITY

// When elder children age out of foster care, they are simply given money and sent out, creating crisis in their lives with no one to guide them

- They need to be taught money management, employment skills and how to find opportunities for themselves

// Don’t just give money, but provide opportunities for people in developing nations to work

// You cannot start something and then back out in a few years time – partnering with the local church is the only way for this to happen

AGRICULTURE

// Agriculture is important as we need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have produced in the past 8000 years because of the way the world has been changing in food consumption

// Approximately 1 billion suffer from chronic hunger – many of these are farmers

// The greatest limitation is access to resources – farmers need to be helped to develop and use relevant technology

// Sustainability and creating revenue is key to help build a model so that things can continue to grow.

// The need isn’t to help grow, but to create an actual liveable earning and economic model with added value

INTERNATIONAL CHURCHES

Note: An Ethiopian national who works with orphans delivered this talk

// The local church in a foreign country knows what they need better than a western church

// Get out of the way and let Father God lead

// Be willing to serve another person’s vision

// Use the systems already in place

// Do not get so involved in strategy that you forget narrative

// Family preservation needs to be a priority – this is what the children need.

- Keep with family

- Find adoption into the extended family

- if not family, then adopt into local community, so they can grow and be a productive part of their nation

 // Personal involvement is needed by Westerners (not just money & meeting material needs)

// Ethiopians have no idea on the theology of adoption – they don’t see the need – imagine if they were educated on it?

// Think about transferring the ownership to the churches and enabling them to take over – build their capacity. Help the church to say: “This is my project”.

Any surprises? Ever been guilty of the mentality that "West is Best" in terms of thinking and what you bring to the table to foreign countries? Had you thought about sustainability?

!dea Camp Morning #1 - The Global State of the Orphan

Steve and I are currently attending !dea Camp, a collaborative conference where everyone gets a voice and chance to throw in their thoughts, ask lots of questions and really engage with the topic. This years theme is 'Orphan Care'. 

These are just a snippet of my notes from the morning session (there will be three more notes like this to come in the next coming days) - there were 8 different speakers (with 5-20 minutes each) plus workshops where all delegates were actively encouraged to throw in their ideas. 

Some of these are statistics. 

Some are experiences from work in various fields. 

Some are just simply random musings. 

The point is not what they are, but what it triggers us to think...to feel...to see...to do. 

Feel free to comment with your thoughts, experiences, opinions!!

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// The orphan crisis seems to large with 150-200 million orphans worldwide

//The people of God are the hope of the world

// Research highlights that in America we do not have the ability to be vulnerable. Americans are the most in debt, overspent, most overweight & most addicted – these are numbing mechanisms to cope with not being able to be broken

//80% of people on mission trips to orphans are women

// The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough Christians in the world – it is that the compassion of the Christians in the world isn’t enough

// If our only solutions to the Orphan Crisis are building/funding orphanages or international adoption, we will only reach around 1-2% of the orphans in need – we need to think outside of the box

// Fatherlessness is written in the hearts of this generation – songs, movies, blogs, TV shows…

// Fatherlessness is the engine driving our worst problems – teenage pregnancy, gang culture, homicide…

//The church needs to raise up mentors to help – In Portland, OR at the mentoring project, there  are 1000 kids on the formal waiting list for mentors

// Churches – start small, start with what is already going on, start with prayer

//Jeremiah 32:7 – Nothing is too difficult for God

// There is no reason the Orphan Crisis cannot be solved – Civil Rights: look at what happened 1960-1969? Global Warming: No one even talked about it 15 years ago.

// We need to work out what the “best interest of the child” really means

// Institutionalised care (orphanages/groups homes) are 5-10 times more costly than family care

// International adoption costs around $30,000. Figures suggest raising a child until their 18 in America costs over $200,000. That is $230,000 that could be spent on reaching multiple orphans, not just one.

// In USA, we have sought to eliminate many/most orphanages and group homes knowing these are not in “the best interest of the child” YET we continue to fund and see the solution oversees as building orphanages

// What if we invested our efforts in helping the people of those nations take care of the children in their nations?

// After the mass rise of international adoptions out of China, the government has put its efforts into foster care and domestic adoption solutions – in 2005 the number of children adopted that stayed in China, surpassed the number adopted internationally

// It is not popular to give to AIDS/HIV funding, but this is a major factor in reducing orphans

// Lets not pretend that a week in a foreign country on missions really benefits that place – it changes us MORE than it changes them

// International missions trips: we pay $2000 to go and paint a fence or orphanage in Uganda, but for $5 a day, we could pay a Ugandan national to do the same and provide him with a job

// Most of President Obama’s staff mentor young people

// Just showing up and being there is 90% of mentoring

// It can take over a year of mentoring before you can really break into the heart of a fatherless child

// How can you help?

            // Start small

            // Start with what is already going on

            // Start with prayer

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Thoughts? Feelings? Comments? Reactions?