Kudos: Problems with Orphanages in Haiti and Cambodia

From time to time, REFORM Talk will offer our kudos to particularly insightful blog posts. This blog post kudos goes to Saundra of The Charity Rater, LLC for her coverage of “voluntourism” and foreign funding of orphanages. The purpose of her blog is to help donators make informed funding decisions.

She outlines the countries’ issues as follows:

“Haiti

• There are 600+ orphanages in Haiti.
• The majority of children in the orphanages are not orphans.
• The children are often placed in orphanages because parents see no other way to feed, clothe, and educate them.
• Many orphanages are unregulated and uncaring.
• Some children were purposefully under-fed to attract more donations. If they looked healthy and well-fed foreign donations might decrease.
• Children may be given over to international adoption (the fee charged for facilitating international adoptions can make them very lucrative).
• It is better to support the family in caring for their own children whenever possible.

Cambodia

• More than three-quarters of children in orphanages have living parents.
• The number of orphanages has doubled over the past five years
• Only 21 of the 269 orphanages are run by the government.  The rest are funded and run by foreign donors and faith-based organizations.
• Many orphanages have been set up to make money off of foreign funds, especially volunteers and tourists (voluntourists).
• Most orphanages have not yet been inspected
• It is cheaper and better to support families in caring for children.”