A New Orphan Project (and Another Grumble About Pills)

I recently blogged about the tendency to medicalise problems that have very simple and cheap solutions. For example, if people are suffering from nutritional deficiencies, they need a good balanced diet and therefore access to adequate food. So many companies, especially multinationals, are weighing in with their very expensive food supplements and 'biofortified' versions of various seeds. If people don't have the money for even their meager diet, they certainly can't afford these overpriced supplements and fortified seeds.

But as myself and my colleagues from Ribbon of Hope Self Help Group sat in a restaurant having a meeting yesterday, a woman came up to us to sell us some nutritional supplements which had all manner of stuff in them, according to the colourful label. But they were to be taken three a day for seven days to relieve just about any ailment that could possibly relate to nutritional deficiency. And the course cost as much as more than two weeks of staple food for four or five people.

If people had this sort of money, they could just buy good food. They would be ill advised to spend it on pills that some woman who approached them in a restaurant tried to sell them. But people do buy all sorts of rubbish that promises to sort out all their children's or their own problems. This is a terrible form of exploitation and the stuff being sold is often produced by very big, powerful, wealthy companies. We tried to persuade her that what she was saying couldn't be true. But you can't blame her for trying to make a living in a country where most people don't have jobs. After all, she's been conned too.

Anyhow, today we went to a small village called Majani Mingi to assess some orphans so their families can be supported to send the orphans to school and look after them, along with the rest of their family. Majani Mingi is near Mogotio, about 50 kilometres North of Nakuru. In fact, you can't get to Majani Mingi most of the time and the best way to get there is by motor bike. It's about 10 kilometres from the main road but, despite this, you never leave the massive sisal estate that is 'owned' by a Greek man who can't even be bothered to pay his employees and suppliers most of the time.

With this in mind, we visited four households, taking in 5 orphans in all. All of them had lost both of their parents and all were being cared for by families that were already stretched for the means to keep providing themselves with the basics. Most people in the village have some connection, direct or indirect, with the sisal factory, either as employees or people who are dependent on employees. I think it is safe to say that pretty much all the people living in these sisal dominated villages are very needy, so it's hard to assess children and families when your finances will only stretch to four children.

We can put together the information we have received, along with similar information for four other villages and then make a decision. I suspect that families themselves will have to decide how to use any support they get because when money is in short supply, so is everything else. You can't very well ask a family of thirteen to give food, clothes and schooling to the one orphan and leave the others without. I really don't know how these decisions are made at the family level. I hope to gain some insight into this over the next few months.

There can be a tendency to associate orphans and other vulnerable children with orphanages. But thankfully, Ribbon of Hope is not interested in such institutions, they are beyond our scope. They cost so much money to run and the children do not get the sort of care they could get in a family. And so many orphanages have been hotbeds of corruption and deceit, where often children get very little and those running the orphanages make a very comfortable living. Of course, they are not all like that, but finding out which are genuine and which are not is just too time and resource consuming. As the orphan and vulnerable children project gets up and running, I'll report progress here.

Orphanages Versus Community Based Care

Given the numbers of orphaned, abandoned and otherwise needy children in developing countries such as Kenya, the issue of whether institutional or community based care is preferable is a difficult one. There are badly run institutions and well run ones. But there are also children who face their greatest dangers in their own homes, from their parents or from their carers. From what I can see in Kenya, social services often don't get involved in cases where things go wrong, either in institutions or in community care settings.

A study with a large sample size published a couple of months ago looked at both types of care, comparing cognitive functioning, emotion, behavior, physical health, and growth. The conclusion was that community care is not better and that, for some indicators, institutions are better. The authors of the study advise against aiming to transfer as many children as possible to some kind of community care setting. This is good advice if the children are in a well run institution or if an adequate level of community care can not be guaranteed.

However, the organisation I am working with, Ribbon of Hope, does not advocate merely keeping a child in their community. We advocate for children to be cared for with the support of other people in the community, in addition to their carer or carers. We would like to see children receive any state support to which they are entitled. And we would like to help provide their carer with the means to provide for the child.

Many children in institutions have one living parent and many more have close relatives who are living. But there are also children who may not have any close relatives or whose relatives are unknown and untraceable. So I wouldn't argue that there is no need for institutions to care for children.

But there are institutions that have been set up with the express aim of making money. I don't know how many of these bogus orphanages there are compared to legitimate orphanages. I just know that several bogus orphanages have been set up in the immediate area around Nakuru. There are also institutions that cannot cope with the number of children they are trying to provide for and conditions for the children, and even the staff, are terrible.

The only well run orphanages I have seen receive very large sums of money from benefactors. It's right that institutions providing for children receive large amounts of money, of course, but most institutions are not able to attract enough money and the children can suffer as a result. Keeping children in an institution usually costs a lot more than providing assistance for them to live in a family setting. Therefore, there may be a good case for more children being raised in a family setting when that is feasible.

In addition, many of these well run orphanages are funded by private donations and are at least partly administrated by foreigners. This is not a bad thing in itself but it does suggest a lack of sustainability and a high degree of dependency. It can be difficult enough for local people to confirm that children presented to them are really orphans but for non-local people it can be impossible. Some people see orphanages as an opportunity to cut their own costs by sending one or more of their children there and claiming the children belong to a deceased relative.

So the stark dichotomy between institutions and community care for orphans is not helpful. Both settings have their advantages and disadvantages. It is quite true that institutions should not aim to transfer as many children as possible to community care. But I think there should be fewer orphanages and far more children should be cared for in a well supported environment. Some of the money available, both state, donor and private, could better be used to provide families with everything they need to give a good home to children who have been orphaned, abandoned or are otherwise in need of care. The study in question is a good one, with a sound methodology, but I don't think it took into account the scenario where the carer is actively supported in providing care.

Incidentally, people often ask about how you can tell whether an orphanage is legitimate or not. They even ask the same question about charities, philanthropic organisations, philanthropists, NGOs, CBOs and the like. I don't have a list of things but the Information in Context blog gives advice on this and other matters. The only rule of thumb I have at the moment is that when people or organisations seem to obsess about numbers, size and quantities, to the exclusion of all other criteria, this can indicate that they are more interested in raising money than in changing things for the better. That always makes me suspicious.

Free Education, For Those Who Can Afford It

If you follow the official literature and commentaries on Kenyan education, you may think that all primary school age children get free schooling. If you go into it in a little more depth, you will find that there are many hidden costs such as 'extra' tuition, which the children have to attend, shoes and uniforms, which have to be worn, exams, materials and various other items.

Therefore, many poorer children fall through the loop. Having no school fees is irrelevant for the parents who are unable to meet the additional costs. Unknown numbers of children don't go to school or don't go to school very much because their families are too poor. The Kenyan government is not too keen to admit to the existence of these children, of course. They enjoy the praise they receive from the press and from foreign donors.

Added to these children of poor families, there are orphans and other children who have been abandoned or who don't have people to provide everything they need. There are well over one million, perhaps as many as two million. There are street children, children who start school so late that they will never catch up and will drop out early, there are children who are sent out to work for much or all of the time they are supposed to be at school.

All in all, the Kenyan government is quite shy about anything that could be called bad news. The recent census may not even account for all the children in this country. It may remain difficult to know how many children are not at school or who don't receive much schooling before they become too old to attend school.

Yesterday, we were in Rhonda again, this time to visit a children's home. There are 120 children being schooled there, 20 of whom live there all the time. Because this children's home is not a public school, they receive nothing towards the children's schooling. There are many such homes around the country. No one has any idea how many, exactly. And the government will not be so keen to talk about these either.

So, for all the money that is said to be spent on 'free' primary education, if would be interesting to know how many really benefit, how many don't get anything and if it's true, as it appears to be, that only the better off get to go to school. It appears that those with least and those who are under the most pressure are also least likely to be able to afford the costs of 'free' education.