Sr. Caroline Ngatia of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
Mary Sisters of Eldoret shares breakfast with the street families in
Nairobi, Kenya. Her center, Kwetu Home of Peace, accommodates homeless
boys ages 8 to 14 who are rescued from the streets and slums in Nairobi
and inducted into a process of reintegration. (Doreen Ajiambo)
The goal is as simple as it is complicated to achieve:
Shift the care of children from institutions like orphanages to a family
or family-like environment.
Catholic sisters in three African nations — Uganda, Zambia and Kenya —
are leading the way in creating new models for caring for children.
Their efforts are the core of the recent launch of Catholic Care for
Children International (CCCI) under the auspices of the International
Union of Superiors General (UISG) — one of many faith groups leading
policy reform and family-based alternatives to institutional care.
In traditional African culture, children were raised by their clan
and extended family relations who nurtured them into responsible adults,
but various socio-economic factors contributed to a break-up of such
family ties. That has led to the formation of large childcare
institutions which generally lack the necessary environment for children
to thrive and develop.
Decades of research has shown that children living in institutional care are extremely exposed to neglect, physical and sexual abuse.
A lack of a stable relationships and interactions among children in
institutions affect their foundations for brain development, resulting
in poor mental health, academic failure, and increased chances of
behavioral problems later in life, studies show.
Most African countries, including Uganda, Zambia and Kenya, have endorsed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
which recognizes that children should be raised in a safe and loving
family or within a community to realize their full potential.
That's a key reason the international sisters' group UISG is
encouraging congregations to end the placement of children in large
institutions and instead support community-based, family-like
alternatives.
During the launch of this global initiative Oct. 2, which was streamed online,
religious orders of women and men were urged to join the initiative.
"We understand that the family is the best place for a child to grow
holistically," Sri Lankan Good Shepherd Sr. Niluka Perera, coordinator
of Catholic Care for Children International, told participants.
"Therefore, it is the responsibility of us who are committed to the care
of vulnerable children to give the best place and environment for a
child to grow."
Loreto Sr. Patricia Murray, executive secretary of the UISG, noted
that there are at least 9,000 Catholic residential institutions or
orphanages worldwide serving almost 5.5 million children. She urged
religious institutions to learn from what others are doing in different
countries to provide the best possible care for the vulnerable children.
Sr. Mary Margaret Itadal of the Little Sisters of St.
Francis* poses outside of her office at Budaka Cheshire Home in eastern
Uganda. The center, which was started in 1970 to improve the quality of
life for children with disabilities, under the Catholic Care for
Children program, now serves as a short-term foster care and transition
care center where the child is admitted awaiting return to the community
so that they are adopted by other families. (Gerald Matembu)
"Catholic Care for Children functions well in three
countries — Zambia, Uganda and Kenya. It's associated very closely with
the conference of religious in each country, and we see that as a very
good model," said Murray in an interview with Global Sisters report. "We
can move our focus to supporting family life because we know that 80%
of children are not orphans but have a living parent or a family
structure, and that family structure can be helped to keep the child at
home." UISG is carefully considering other countries where the model can
be implemented, she said.
Poverty and family breakdown have contributed to the growth of
institutional care, said Kathleen Mahoney, a program officer of GHR
Foundation, which has "Children in Families"
as one of its program areas. Through the respective religious
associations, GHR has been providing funding in the three countries for
the training of sisters in social work, case management and child care
programs, and assisting in the transition from institutional to family
care.
"GHR has a long history of working with Catholic sisters around the
globe, and we really see them as tremendous spiritual and social asset
for the world," she said. The social and spiritual aspects came together
in Zambia and Uganda and recently in Kenya where "we really see sisters
at the helm," she said. "Catholic Care for Children is a sister-led,
charism-driven movement to improve care for children. We see real
potential for this to grow."
Global Sisters Report reported from Uganda, Zambia and Kenya on the
program models and how UISG is aiming to play a role in expanding these
models to elsewhere in the world and trying to de-emphasize
institutional care.
Sr. Mary Lunyolo, a member of Sisters of Mary of Kakamega,
explains the new child integration guidelines. (Gerald Matembu)
Uganda
The Catholic Care for Children's initial pilot project started in
Uganda five years ago. The initiative began when the government of
Uganda raised a red flag over poor quality of care in childcare
institutes across the country, especially those run by the churches. The
government threatened to close several children's homes, including
those belonging to the religious sisters because of a lack of training
to handle children, according to sisters interviewed for this article.
The East African nation had about 36 residential child care
institutions in 1996, and now has an estimated 800 institutional care
centers with around 150,000 children, according to available data
published in 2019. Only 70 institutions are licensed by the Ugandan
Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development, according to this
report.
Catholic Care for Children in Uganda (CCCU) sought to reform child
care institutes with the objective of ensuring a stable and secure
family environment for every child. CCCU, which is an initiative of the
Association of Religious in Uganda (ARU) and financially supported by
GHR Foundation, began by training dozens of religious caregivers on the
importance of family care rather than institutional care.
CCCU offered scholarships to more than 80 religious sisters in the
areas of social work and social administration. A majority of the
sisters attained a bachelor's degree in social work, some obtained
master's degrees in social work, and others trained in a certificate
course on protection of children. The sisters received their training at
Makerere University in Uganda, in partnership with the Ministry of
Gender, Labor and Social Development.
Sr. Mary Lunyolo, a member of Sisters of Mary of Kakamega,
said the motive of training was to help the sisters with skills to
support family reintegration, avert future family separation and finally
end institutionalization within Uganda, a country of 44 million people.
"Many of the childcare institutes were run by sisters who had
inadequate skills on institutional childcare," said Lunyolo. "But many
of our sisters right now have received training in various aspects of
childcare."
Lunyolo is the administrator of St. Kizito Babies Home,
which was established in 1968 to care for babies whose mothers died
during childbirth. It now serves as a short-term foster care and
transition care center. Children are admitted awaiting return to the
community so that they are adopted by other families, she said.
Sr. Mary Lunyolo, a member of Sisters of Mary of Kakamega,
poses for a photo with Rachael Weginga, a social worker at St. Kizito
Baby's Home in eastern Uganda. (Gerald Matembu)
She said the home, which admits children from newborns to
age 3, has been able to reintegrate 18 children, who are monitored in
the community by sister caseworkers. Lunyolo estimated that thousands of
children have been integrated with family members or adoptive families
since the program began in various centers run by religious women in
Uganda.
"The initiative is really working well because the community has
bought into the idea," she said, noting that age levels and policies had
to be changed. "Previously this home used to keep children up to 9
years, but now we strictly see them off within 3 years under the new
policy." Sisters had been reintegrating dozens of children every week,
she said, before the pandemic.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, has hampered the new
policy of permanent unification in various centers across the country,
Lunyolo said. The institution could not hold social meetings and
trainings due to COVID-19 restrictions, which also hampered the ability
to place children with foster parents.
"Sisters are not able to receive more children at their centers right
now because they do not have the necessary check-up and isolation
facilities," she said. "Visitors and parents are also not allowed to
visit the centers for reintegration or adoption."
The reintegration process can have shortcomings that expose the child
to more risk of abuse and neglect in the hands of the caregivers,
especially relatives, said Lunyolo.
"Sometimes you find all is well, but sometimes you find there is a
problem," said Lunyolo, clarifying that the majority of caregivers lack
parenting skills or financial resources to care for the children. "Some
of the resettled children hardly receive the parental care from the
caregivers as majority of them often lack parenting skills or are
economically handicapped." The region, which includes Mbale in the
eastern part of Uganda, ranks almost double the country's poverty index, at 40% compared with the national average of 21.4%, according to the Uganda National household survey in 2016-17.
Srs. Caroline Ngatia, at left, in white veil, and Caroline
Cheruiyot, far right, and members of the staff work together on behalf
of the street children, some of whom are pictured here, at Kwetu Home of
Peace in Nairobi, Kenya. The center, which is run by the Assumption of
the Blessed Virgin Mary Sisters of Eldoret, since 1993 had been taking
in homeless. (Doreen Ajiambo)
Sisters try to address such issues by providing startup
kits, which include basic requirements such as food, clothing and
bedding. In some cases, they offer income generating activities such as
poultry keeping and livestock rearing. The institution also equips
economically limited parents with skills such as hair dressing,
tailoring and small business to boost their livelihood.
The home sensitizes parents and the community on child protection,
which includes parenting skills training prior to the transition. The
institution also makes follow up visits for two years to ascertain the
welfare of the child. If conditions are not good, their intervention is
limited to reporting to the probation officer, who by law reserves
discretionary power to delay the unification or recall the child from
the caregiver if the child is deemed to be unsafe. Where necessary, the
institution links the children to partner non-governmental organizations
for further support, said Rachael Weginga, a social worker attached to
St. Kizito Babies Home.
Catholic Care for Children Institutes Uganda is emphasizing a
holistic approach to transitional care, including family counseling and
economic strengthening and parenting, aimed at ensuring that the family
or foster care giver is ready to receive the child, based on the "do no
harm" principle. "It is not about taking the child home," said Joseph
Ssentongo, an official from the Kampala-based CCCU secretariat.
The Catholic Care initiative in Uganda now works with nearly 20
religious institutes operating 46 child care institutions with almost
2,000 children. The pilot program, which began in 2016 and ends in
December 2021, is being implemented in three phases.
The first phase of the project started with CCCU assessing religious
caregivers' skills and qualifications to run the institutional care. In
its second phase, CCCU carried out research to find out whether
religious sisters running the institutions were implementing the legal
frameworks for child protection.
Sr. Winnie Mutuku of the Daughters of Charity of St.
Vincent de Paul founded Upendo Street Children (USC), an organization
that serves homeless boys in Kitale, Kenya. She is already championing
the importance of family care for children. (Provided photo)
The results from the two phases revealed that there was
greater need for training to be done on child protection so that sisters
caring for children are able to carry out their duties with skills and
qualifications required, said Lunyolo.
The issue of funding is also delaying the new model of permanent
integration, Lunyolo said. The institutions still need support to care
for children on a temporary basis, to identify caregivers and provide
needed support and resettlement packages to families and foster parents.
This has led the Association of Religious in Uganda to launch a CCCU
Fundraising and Transitioning Donors program aimed at winning the hearts
of donors to support the new model.
Brian Carroll, founder and chief executive officer of Markempa,
company that provides empathy-based marketing services, is championing
the donor transition
program. The program seeks to address funding gaps that are choking
transitional care in many Christian child care institutions.
"Early on, we discovered there was a significant need to establish
fundraising basics for the Christian child care institutions that
included doing consistent donor outreach to get new donors via phone,
email, social media, and face-to-face," he said. More than 10
institutions have registered tremendous progress in one year, he said,
to support the transition into community-based and family care.
Zambia
A three-year pilot program through the Zambia Association of
Sisterhoods started in 2019 is reintegrating children from institutions
into family and community care, building on practical experience from
Uganda and research conducted earlier in Zambia.
The southern African nation had about 8,335 children living in institutional care, according to government data cited in a 2016 research report
by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and sponsored by the GHR Foundation.
The children lived in 190 residential care facilities, with 40 being
Catholic-affiliated.
The research looked in-depth at Catholic residential care facilities
and what was needed to preserve families and promote alternative
family-based care. Poverty — being unable to afford school fees or food —
was the primary reason for placement in institutions, with the death of
a parent as the second-most common reason, the research found. Plans
for a Catholic Care for Children Zambia (CCCZ) program began in 2017
with the formal pilot project starting two years later.
Catholic Care for Children Zambia plans to integrate 60 children from
institutional care to family care in the three-year pilot project
period that ends in December 2021, according to Sr. Cecilia Nakambo,
project coordinator for CCCZ. Two residential facilities were identified
as initial sites for reintegration efforts, St. Martins Children's Home
in the Lufwanyama district, and Lubatsi Home in Livingstone.
So far, 48 children have so far been reunited with their families
from the two residential care facilities, Nakambo said. Notable signs of
success include developing processes for proper documentation, planning
and preparing the child to bond with its family, and engaging the
family for the integration process, including identifying needed
resources, she said. Resources can include food, school fees, clothing
and transportation costs as most children come from rural areas.
Training of sisters and other caregivers in case management and
counseling was particularly important. "We thought that a child could
easily reunite with their family without proper assessment or
investigations on whether they will easily be embraced back and even
when they were not ready to be reintegrated," she said. The sisters also
work with a government department to help find family members and
reunite them with the children.
Sr. Cecilia Nakambo of the Little Sisters of St. Francis is
the project coordinator for Catholic Care for Children Zambia. (Derrick
Silimina)
Catholic Care for Children Zambia aims to improve the
wellbeing of children by continuing to provide counseling to family
members of the 48 children and others who are reintegrated, in a second
phase of the program after the pilot program ends in 2021. A review of
the pilot project will determine if the reintegration program expands to
include more children, Nakambo said.
Training is also being provided to caregivers within the two
residential care facilities, she said. "We have carried out a number of
trainings such as in case management, reintegration, trauma counseling,
and basic qualification care for children which helps caregivers serve
effectively, and how to protect and know a child's rights in a
facility," said Nakambo, adding that much of the practical knowledge has
been acquired from the initial project in Uganda.
As much as Care for Children Zambia favors the idea of child
integration, the residential facilities produced notable members of
Zambian society, including some senior government officials, she said,
opting to not identify them to protect their privacy. However, the new
method of reintegration with families has even greater likelihood of
producing responsible members of society, she added.
"Through the help of GHR, we are carrying out this pilot activities
and I can see that reintegration is possible in the new guidelines, as
well as what is needed, how much, who is on board or its challenges
among other factors," Nakambo said.
Recently, the CCCZ organized a counseling workshop for 35 children
who are traumatized from various orphanages in Lusaka. Reintegration is
key for children in orphanages to alleviate trauma, said Charity Shaba,
the professional child counselor who led the workshop.
"We have managed to counsel children against the effects of mental
stress, and most of them are now opening up and coming out of the trauma
they had been going through," Shaba said.
The Zambia Association of Sisterhoods is doing a great job to
spearhead the reintegration program because children have been living in
various orphanages not knowing who they really are, and have been
traumatized after being orphaned or abandoned by their parents, Shaba
said.
"I feel the program will help children discover who they really are
as individuals and find their own family identity. In the near future, I
think we will have better family set ups because what they just know is
their foster parents from the caregiver institutions and to them that
is a normal way of life," she said.
Children play at Kwetu Home of Peace in Nairobi, Kenya. The
home is a rehabilitation center for street boys between the ages 8 and
14 years old. (Provided photo)
Kenya
When the East African nation began taking steps in 2018 to reduce the
number of children in institutional care, there were estimated 42,000 children in over 854 children's homes across the country.
The government announced a long-standing action plan towards deinstitutionalization of children. It also further placed a moratorium on the registration of institutions, revoking some of the licenses of adoption agencies.
The government's emphasis on deinstitutionalization helped spur
research and discussion among sisters in 2018 about a Catholic Care for
Children program in Kenya, which formally began a year later. One key
aspect is to draw on the long-time experience of one of the local
congregations in reintegrating children with families.
Since 1993, religious sisters at Kwetu Home of Peace,
a rehabilitation center for street boys, has focused on tracing
families of displaced children and preparing these children to return
home. Other institutional care centers, especially those run by the
Catholic Church, also began following this model of reintegration.
The center, which is run by the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Sisters of Eldoret,
accommodates homeless boys ages 8 to 14 who are rescued from the
streets and slums in Nairobi and elsewhere and inducted into a process
of reintegration. Three times a year, about 60 boys are taken into the
program.
Sr. Hellen Simiyu, administrator of the center, said that using a
scorecard during reintegration, sisters assess the family's needs and
provide financial assistance as necessary. The center has reintegrated
more than 4,500 children since 1993, with a long-term success rate of
about 80%. To ensure that reintegration is successful, it is as vital to
invest in families as it is in children, she said.
"We pick boys from the streets; after three weeks, we do home
visiting and home tracing where we talk to parents and local leaders on
the importance of accepting these children back to the families," said
Simiyu. "Most of the boys we pick from the streets either have one
parent or poor guardians who cannot take care of them; therefore, they
end up on the streets."
Simiyu said that the model has been successful because of the strict
adherence of all reintegration processes. They usually call the parents,
an education officer from the government, and the area government
official to ensure the safety of the child and for easy follow-up, she
said.
Children should also be at the heart of reintegration efforts, she
said. "Children should be listened to and involved in each stage of the
process," she said, admitting that in some cases family reintegration
fails because children returning to their families may not be in their
best interests. "For children who don't have parents, we always get
willing people from the church, others even volunteer from different
institutions and they agree to support the child through foster
parenthood."
Frank Kinuthia, 20, who now lives in a family unit after
sisters from Kwetu Home of Peace in Kenya found him a home seven years
ago, said he was now doing better socially, emotionally and physically
than when he was at the center. (Provided photo)
Children interviewed said they are pleased with the
model. Frank Kinuthia, 20, who now lives in a family unit after sisters
from Kwetu Home of Peace found him a home seven years ago, said he was
now doing better socially, emotionally and physically than when he was
at the center.
"I'm happy to be in a family because I have learned to love and
cherish every moment," said Kinuthia, who was taken in from the streets
of Nairobi in 2009 after both parents died. The sisters found him a
family among members of a parish after searching for several months.
"It's a good feeling to have parents and siblings. They act as a role
model. These parents will always encourage you to do good things and
live in harmony with others."
Simiyu said the launching of Catholic Care for Children International
will further implement this initiative for the sake of young children.
"We are very happy with this initiative because it confirms what we have
been doing," she said. "We are going to double our efforts to ensure
every child has a normal life."
Sr. Winnie Mutuku who manages Upendo Street Children, a project run by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul
in Kitale town in western Kenya, said she has already began
championing the importance of family care for children after learning
the model from Kwetu Home of Peace and other Catholic affiliated centers.
"Since we began reintegration last year in March, we have
reintegrated 46 children so far," she said, adding that now her center
aims to restore dignity to the homeless children, educate them and
reunite them with their respective families. "I am in total support of
the UISG initiative to make sure that every child gets a home. It is the
best way to go and also solution to many negative social effects that
are currently affecting the youths."
Mutuku who won a presidential order of service
award last year for feeding street children amid COVID-19, said her
center hasn't reintegrated any children this year because they were
still doing home tracing.The center rescues 20 to 30 children twice a
year from the streets. They stay at the center for three to six months
for rehabilitation before the process of reintegration begins, she said.
After reintegration, Mutuku said "we do a follow up at least for a
year to ensure the safety and sustainability of the children just to
ensure they don't go back to the streets,"
"When I see children in a loving home or with parents, my heart is at
peace," she concluded. "I hope this noble initiative by UISG will be
adopted by many more institutions even if they are not sister- or
church-led."
Sr. Delvin Mukhwana, who is responsible for safeguarding
and promoting quality care for children at the Association of
Sisterhoods in Kenya (AOSK) and the project manager for Catholic Care
for Children Kenya, told GSR that she was planning to reduce the number
of children in residential care by holding workshops to bring in
important community stakeholders to create family care models that
include family reintegration, foster care, and domestic adoption.
The workshops for community members and the training of sisters from
various congregations about the guidelines of transitional care began in
July 2019, but have been more difficult to continue because of COVID-19
restrictions. The sisters do hold some virtual meetings to discuss the
progress of reintegration.
"We are involving everyone in this process of reintegration. We are
currently working with the institutions that have already begun this
initiative by educating them on how they should proceed moving forward
after reintegration," said Mukhwana, of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary Sisters of Eldoret. "We specifically educate them on the
importance of family to the growth of a child."
*An earlier version of this story gave the wrong community.
[Gerald Matembu is a reporter in Uganda and Derrick Silimina is a reporter in Zambia.]
