As we all plan for our families, we never know what will befall our loved ones when we are gone. A situation where the parents die leaving behind helpless children is catastrophic. Some children are taken up by close relatives while others are left alone to figure out how to survive on their own. In a situation where you are required to lend a helping hand; raise children of your deceased sister, brother or friend. It might seem like a smooth journey but it’s a tough task.
- Health & Nutrition: In different parts of India, we work relentlessly to ensure that children grow up healthy and enjoy a happy childhood.
Even today, 11.2 lakh children in India die before their fifth birthday. Every 25 seconds, a child under five years of age dies mostly due to preventable causes such as infections and malnutrition.
It’s this utterly sad situation which firms our resolve to provide robust health and nutrition benefits to children and save lives. Almost 50% of our work for children caters to the Health & Nutrition needs of children. In different states of India, we’re passionately working to improve the health and nutrition status of newborns, mothers, and expecting women with special focus on those coming from the most disadvantaged communities. - Healthcare Which Saves Lives: We go by the mantra that No Child is Born to Die. That is why we have projects in several states of India which are aimed at increasing the chances of survival of children between the ages of 0-5 years, reducing levels of malnutrition among them and improving newborn and maternal health.
In all of this, we engage heavily with the local community. We work towards disseminating the message of the importance of maintaining good personal health and hygiene, for themselves and for their children. We collaborate with state- and district-level government authorities, schools, and Aanganwadi Centres. The Community Health Workers (CHWs) we train and work with form the backbone of our healthcare initiatives. To improve the hygiene and nutrition behavior of the communities we work with and to inculcate the habits of healthy living, are among the ultimate aims of all our Health & Nutrition programmes. - Either collectively with a group or individually, begin an adoption fund to support adoptive families. Perhaps adoption isn’t something you are ready or able to pursue, but I’d be willing to bet you know an adoptive family. A variety of factors will affect the cost of adoption, particularly geographic location. My friend and her husband have committed to financially supporting every adoptive family they meet. It’s a familial commitment they’ve made. Would you consider doing the same? Wouldn’t it be beautiful if the families burdened to take in orphaned children knew that finances would not be a barrier? Wouldn’t it be incredible if they could look at the list of costs in front of them and be confident in the fact that their family, friends, and community would help make this adoption a reality?
- Care of child. In 2014, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, 264,746 children entered into the foster care system in the US. Read that statistic carefully. Those are just the children that entered into the system during 2014. This number does not include those already in the system. Fostering is difficult. Care of child has been designed to ultimately reunite the family when possible, thus providing opportunities for grace to abound and for reconciliation to become tangible; however, for the families that take on the commitment to foster a child and temporarily step into the role of a caregiver, this is hard. As hard as it may be for a fostering family, though, please consider how invaluable fostering is for the children involved. Foster families have the opportunity to pour into the life of a vulnerable child in a way that can eternally impact the life of that child.
- Become a respite worker for fostering families. Carr explains that “respite workers are retained and screened to help care for [children] with physical and emotional special needs.” These workers will provide anywhere from an hour to a few weeks of care for children whose foster families must be away from the child. This can be an extraordinary blessing to foster families and another opportunity to impact a vulnerable child with God’s grace.
- Begin an outreach program within your church or community that ministers to the needs of fostering and adoptive families. While the financial needs are often first to come to mind, not enough can be said about engaging with fostering and adoptive families to provide educational and emotional support. These families are facing questions, trials, and fears that no other family is combating. We were designed for community, and these families need community in a tangible way that recognizes their efforts, celebrates their victories, and grieves alongside them when they face defeat.
