The Middle Eastern nation of Rojava has established feminist ideologies within its constitution and continues to be a beacon of feminist-led policies and experiments in communal anarchism.
Read More#HatchKids Discuss Microaggressions
SheKnows Media's Hatch program creates KidsSpeak content for grown-ups, made by kids on a mission. This workshop's mission was to educate parents on the concept of "microaggressions," defined as a form of unintentional discrimination, and their impact on teens' self-esteem. SheKnows Media's Hatch program creates KidsSpeak content for grown-ups, made by kids on a mission. For more information, visit – http://corporate.sheknows.com/hatch
Together: Ending Child Marriage in Zambia
Mirriam is a 17-year-old who, like any other teenager, has ambitions and dreams. She wants to become a doctor. However, where Mirriam lives, child marriage and poverty threaten her chances of getting the education she needs and the future she dreams of.
Together: Ending Child Marriage in Zambia is a short documentary that asks what can be done to enable girls like Mirriam to avoid child marriage and fulfil their potential?
It tells the story of partnership, of how civil society activists, girls, traditional leaders, and the government are coming together to make sure that no girl is married as a child.
If a movement can gain momentum in a country where rates of early marriage are among the highest in the world, then perhaps we can pave the way for change not only in Zambia but far beyond.
Together: Ending Child Marriage in Zambia shows how by working in partnership we can put an end to child marriage in one generation, and ensure that every girl, like Mirriam, can have a bright future.
This film features the work of Girls Not Brides members in Zambia including the Forum for African Women Educationalists Zambia (FAWEZA), Population Council and YWCA Zambia.
IMAGE COURTESY OF ORPHANAGES.NO
Orphanage Volunteering’s Shocking Link to Child Abuse
I never thought that playing catch with a kid could be a bad thing, or that goofing off could contribute to long-term psychological damage. Even now, as I write it, it all seems a little absurd. Is it really possible that making kids laugh could do permanent harm?
Every year, millions of people travel around the world to volunteer. Orphanages are one of the most popular destinations, and it makes sense. Many volunteers like working with children, often because children are enthusiastic and working with them is very active and “hands on.” Most of the tasks volunteers are given when working with kids are simple, and it is rare that volunteers are expected to have any specialized skills or to participate in any in-depth training before starting their volunteer work.
At the same time, orphanages are often understaffed and poorly kept up. Operating with limited resources (or under the appearance of limited resources), they are frequently on the lookout for people who are willing to pay to work. Placement companies and organizations provide orphanages with paying volunteers to help with childcare, teaching, cooking, and maintenance. Volunteers are told that they’ll be providing orphaned children with a more nurturing environment while orphanages get a steady income and a constant flow of helping hands.
All of this sounds fine and dandy, but the problem with orphanage volunteer work isn’t in the volunteer’s desire to help, but in the very existence and implementation of orphanages themselves.
Not many would-be volunteers realize that more than 80% of children who are labeled as “orphans” have a surviving parent. Even fewer understand that the traditional kinship structures of many non-western countries, especially those where orphanage volunteering is most common, actually result in very few children being left without someone to care for them (Richter and Norman, 2010; UNAIDS/UNICEF/USAID, 2004).
Which begs the question: why are there so many kids in orphanages?
There are orphans that need a home, and sometimes that means that they have to go into group care, but for many of the children who are labeled as orphans and blazoned across brochures, it’s poverty, not a loss of family, that put them there. Desperation will make people do unthinkable things, especially with the promise of ample food, a solid education, and a comfortable bed. Because of this, all around the world caregivers are willingly giving up their children to orphanages. Sometimes, they even get cash in return. This isn’t altruism on the orphanages part, it’s well-disguised human trafficking.
None of this is the volunteer’s fault, but just by working at orphanages, volunteers are contributing to the problem and, inadvertently, may be supporting the exploitation and traumatization of children - the opposite of what their goal was in going to volunteer in the first place.
Once the volunteer arrives at the orphanage, they might get a feeling that something is off, but it’s easy to push that feeling away when there are kids who genuinely do need help regardless of how they got there. The do need attention and love, they do need teachers and caregivers, and when they get those things children, especially young children, are often overwhelming grateful. It’s hard to walk away, and it’s easy to ignore the problems when there’s a kid on your lap, a kid on your back, and another looking for a place to grab onto.
While the industry is definitely shockingly corrupt, there are many orphanages and children’s homes that truly believe that they are acting in their ward’s best interests and are committed to putting the child’s, not the paying visitor’s, needs first. The way children get into an orphanage, and the ongoing exploitation of them once they have arrived, are part of a systemic problem that may not apply to every orphanage. However, there are also more personal impacts of short-term volunteering, relevant across the entire industry, that may be just as harmful.
Three key aspects of child development that most people can agree on are:
- Children benefit from long-term relationships with adult figures.
- Those adults don’t have to be a family member in the traditional sense, but having a stable familial atmosphere promotes positive development.
- Children without stable relationships with adults often suffer from psychological and behavioral issues that are directly related to a lack of stability and guidance early in life.
All three of these are proven concepts that apply around the world from Cambodian orphanages to the American foster care system. Orphanages that rely heavily on free or paying volunteer labor and, as a result, tend to have only a small local staff, act in complete disregard of these three concepts. They drastically reduce the opportunities that their children have to form long-term relationships, they create an unstable environment where people are constantly rotating in and out and, by doing those two things, they are causing psychological damage to the children that they are supposed to be helping.
As a privileged “gringa,” or white girl, who spends time in impoverished communities, I’ve come to realized not only what my presence can mean, but also what it can do. I know that when I was doing short-term volunteer work, I was as much of an exotic distraction to the children I was working with as they were to me. Even when they had the opportunity to form relationships with locals who could serve as role models, it was my presence that was highlighted. I, the person who was going to leave in just a few days, was given all the attention that should have been shined on the heroes who the children were interacting with every day.
Some might argue that this is giving volunteers too much credit since that all they are there to do is help. Any person who has had children climb on top of them in a frenzy for attention, clamor to have their picture taken, or cry in their arms as they prepare to leave, has to admit that they are in a position of immense power. By choosing to support orphanages that rely on volunteer labor, well-meaning volunteers are inadvertently using this power to exacerbate a broken system and disincentivize governments and NGOs from finding lasting systems-based solutions.
Even if the orphanage that you’ve been eyeing looks perfect, short-term volunteering at orphanages feeds a market that trafficks in, exploits, abuses, and permanently traumatizes the very children that you are looking to help. Even in the best of cases, short-term volunteer work, especially unskilled and non-specialized placements, encourage an uneven power dynamic in which the volunteers are held above the locals. They are looked to as benevolent angels, turning the lens away from the men and women who could serve as positive adult role-models for children who desperately need a stable family environment.
I’ve would never have labeled myself as abusive before I volunteered at an orphanage, and I think it’s fair to say that most volunteers would recoil at the suggestion that they could be categorized as abusers. Now that I know what orphanage volunteer does to children, I have to call it out for what it is - abusive and exploitative.
So no, you shouldn’t go. Don’t support orphanage volunteering. Don’t support child abuse.
You can support this effort in two ways:
- Sign the petition calling on travel operators to remove orphanage volunteering placements from their websites.
- Share this post, along with your thoughts on orphanage volunteering, using the hashtag #StopOrphanTrips.
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON HUFFINGTON POST.
PIPPA BIDDLE
Pippa Biddle is a writer. Her work has been published by The New York Times online, Antillean Media Group, The FBomb, MTV, Elite Daily, Go Overseas, Matador Network, and more. She is a graduate of Columbia University with a degree in Creative Writing. Twitter: @PhilippaBiddle
VIDEO: Dirt Court Dreams in Africa
Just outside the southern wall of Kibera, the largest urban slum in Africa, is Sadili Oval Sports Academy. Meaning "well-being" in Swahili," Sadili is a social enterprise that uses sports as a means to reach out to children and young people in need - both in the slums and from across East Africa.
"Dirt Court Dreams" centers on Flo - a Kibera resident and tennis coach - and reflects how Sadili has made her life better and through her has, and is, improving the lives of many others.
VIDEO: Inner Me
While following Jemima, a little curious girl who wanders through dusty roads, crowded markets, slaughterhouses, furnaces and bat hunters, we get acquainted with three women who describe the harsh realities of being born female and deaf in a society that discriminates against both women and people with disabilities. The stories of Immaculée, Sylvie and Stuka are stories of everyday struggle against marginalization, abuse, and oppression, but despite the insurmountable obstacles imposed on them by society, the protagonists show us how their strong and undefeated will allows them to take hold of their fate every single day and reveals the beautiful resilience of the human spirit.
VIDEO: Catalyst Series on Talking with Lineage Project
CATALYST talks with Gabrielle Horowitz-Prisco, Executive Director of Lineage Project. LP is a social action organization that brings mindfulness and meditation to at-risk and incarcerated youth in New York City.
CHINA: Love is Blind
The recently relaxed one-child policy in China led many parents to abandon children who were born with mental or physical disabilities.
Photographer Alice Carfrae travelled between Beijing and Zhengzhou to visit two projects run by Bethel, a dedicated organization that is set up to provide high-quality care, education, life skills and livelihood opportunities to blind and visually impaired children in China through foster care projects. Bethel also runs an associate programme in training and outreach called 555, which aims to prevent blindness, lower orphan rates and conduct eye screenings to identify young visually-impaired children living in the country.
Above: (Left) Cane belonging to En Hong who arrived at Bethel in 2008. They believe she may have been living on the streets. (Right) Yuan Ming has albinism. He came into Bethel’s care when he was just a year old. He has learned to walk and he is now talking a lot.
Almost all of the children helped by Bethel have been abandoned by their parents, because they have a physical or mental health problems. Susan Ou, manager of Bethel’s Love is Blind project, says minor disabilities such as missing fingers can be reason enough for parents to abandon a child.
Above: (Far left) Gui Gui hugs his friend as they wait in line for lunch and then gives his teacher a big hug (middle). (Right) A teacher takes Ai Fei’s hand and guides her to class.
In the past decades, China’s One Child policy has exacerbated this problem as a great deal of pressure is put on the child to provide for the rest of the family, especially for their parents as they reach old age. If they are unable to work, they cannot meet this requirement or support the family, and this leads some parents to abandon their child.
Above: Children attend a cognitive skills class at Bethel. Developing cognitive skills by moving parts of the body and using the senses at a young age is a very important for a child with a visual impairment.
There are two projects within the Love is Blind programme. The first is a partnership between Bethel and an orphanage in Zhengzhou and another orphanage in Dou Dian, outside Beijing, which includes a farm, school and home for visually impaired children.
Above: (Left) Hong Fa plays the Chinese flute whilst his friend Xiao Dong listens. Peter (middle, right) loves to sing and has a perfect tenor voice. He was awarded a scholarship for his excellent work which he spent on music lessons.
Speech therapy is now regarded as a vital component for many of the children, and music also plays a huge part in the children’s lives, with specially designed music rooms offering stimulation and relaxation.
Above: Jian Ang (left) helps Jianshan do up his jacket at the orphanage in Zhengzhou.
Early on, children are encouraged to understand the concept of their own bodies, which instils confidence and a strong sense of self. At Bethel, both the environment and the children are very well cared for, and this, in turn, helps to prevent the kind of discrimination against disabilities, which has pervaded wider Chinese society for many years.
Above: (Left) Yuan Ming has albinism, when he came into Bethel’s care he was just a year old. He has learned to walk and he is now talking a lot. (Right) Jian Ang also has albinism. When he arrived, he was a tiny, weak baby. Now he runs everywhere and does well in class.
The role of education, whatever their needs, is paramount.
Above: (Left) a caregiver touches the head of a child and describes what it does so that he understands the concept of his body. (Middle) Xuerou plays with her teacher, before coming to Bethel she could not even sit up. (Right) Children are encouraged to play and explore.
In Alice's words:
Zhengzhou is not the prettiest city. Its grey buildings are shrouded by a grey choking smoke. Henan is one of China’s poorer provinces and its capital reflects this. The Zhengzhou City Children’s Welfare Institute is located on the very outskirts of the city, where land is cheaper.
Despite being newly painted, the centre still did not look especially inviting from the outside, but we were welcomed warmly by Ma Jingya, who has been working as a teacher there for two years.
When we arrived, the twelve children in Bethel’s preschool initiative were taking an after lunch nap. We took this chance to look around one of the apartments they share, including a girl’s room, a boy’s room and a separate space for babies. The apartment looked very cosy with the kitchen and living room especially feeling like family homes. The only clue to the nature of the environment is stickers with children’s names and pictures to identify chairs, cups and toothbrushes.
Above: Baby room at the Zhengzhou orphanage.
The first child to wake was Xuerou. As I walked over to her cot I could see her yawning and smiling to herself. I whispered hello and she squealed with delight. Susan Ou, Bethel’s manager, told me she loves being talked to and cuddled. Xuerou is a child in whom they have seen the most significant changes since her arrival, very weak and malnourished.
Xuerou’s former circumstances are not known, but at first, she couldn’t even sit up or eat solid food, nor had she ever been taught how to walk or talk. It took six months of intensive care for her to respond to food and three years before she was able to stand. Now she is six, and can walk, but remains very small for her age. Susan told me that she understands when you tell her she is beautiful and will let you brush her hair.
Above: When Xuerou first arrived at age 4, she was very weak. She couldn’t sit up or eat any solid food. She now understands when you tell her that she is beautiful and she loves being cuddled and having her hair brushed.
I also spent a day with Gui Gui, a five year old boy who came into Bethel’s care at 18 months, after being abandoned by his parents. Gui Gui was expecting us but was feeling too shy to say hello. However, his shyness dissipated as soon as his Braille class started. The teacher, who is also blind, formed the children into a group to act out the Braille dots. Gui Gui was particularly quick and bossy, shouting out answers and physically putting the others in the correct place.
Gui Gui has transformed over the years, staff told me, from a terrified little boy who couldn’t walk or talk into the smiling bundle of energy I see today, who jumps downstairs in his haste to get to lunch. It wasn’t long before he was taking my hand and guiding me round his home.
He took particular interest in my camera, feeling his way around the buttons and the shutter. He would shout for his friends and the teacher and when he located them he would point the camera in their direction and push the shutter button in rapid succession as though firing a gun.
Gui Gui showed me one of his favorite places, the music room. He can play many instruments including the piano, which he asked me to play with him. When he realized I am not musical, he sat himself on my lap, took my hands in his and guided my fingers to the right keys to help me play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star — which is exactly what he is.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA
Text by Legatum Foundation
ALICE CARFRAE
Alice Carfrae is an English documentary photographer currently based in Beijing, China. She works for clients such as The Telegraph magazine, Ford Foundation, Legatum, The Welsh Ruby Union, the Youth Justice Board, and Billionaire.com.
USA: Skateboarding with Lakota Youth
'Skateboarding in Pine Ridge' chronicles a skatepark build and the lives of Lakota youth in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. The director hopes to put a spotlight the hard work of the Stronghold Society, an organization dedicated to empowering youth through skateboarding, art, and music.
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