Kidsave Sierra Leone: Reuniting Orphan with Family

That's right, leaning about the rights of children!  Recently, when a handful of families in  Sierra Leone's Yagato village were about to get training on how to integrate and raise the orphans they'd just taken in, something very surprising happened.  Instead of 50 people showing up for the training, 125 did! 

It turned out that that many people want to understand what is normal and expected in raising a healthy, happy, connected and educated child. Over those three days, as a group, they’d learn about childcare, home management, child protection and supervision, and the stop abuse, child soldiering and other forms of exploitation.

A similar thing happened in a mining camp recently where hundreds of people showed up for training planned for just four families. Since 2010, Kidsave has worked in Sierra Leone, getting more than 1100 kids out of orphanages and into vetted families -- nearly always with kin. 

This growing trend hints at something we hadn't seen before -- that there is a yearning to know what is good and normal for children. Kidsave’s partner, the Foundation for Integrated Development (FID) works closely with local leaders and has seen these trainings bear fruit. The children feel more supported, the villagers become aware of the needs, and the whole community is strengthened.

In the days before training, a “reunification” ceremony typically takes place. This ceremonial marking of the placement of a child in a family also symbolizes a return to village life, community, and the longed-for connection to culture that orphans tell us they miss while living in an orphanage. The presence of village chiefs, teachers, local councilors, religious leaders, women’s leaders, youth leaders and health workers adds to the events’ prestige and visibility and creates a sense of readiness to serve children better.

Prior to Kidsave’s support in this district, it was common for adults to pay little attention to children’s emotions and interests. This negatively affects the social, mental and healthy development of children. Strengthening the environment for children also helps prevents the exploitation of children as child laborers and reduces other forms of child abuse.

The training was very successful one. It presented modern practices for good parenting, family task work for children and overall mentorship of children. While the big crowd was welcomed to receive training, food was insufficient to feed all 125 participants for three days, and thankfully, the local chief of Yagato village donated a large bag of cassava to help out, confirming the old adage .... it take a village to raise a child!

Links:

• Reunification of orphans in Sierra Leone
• The need
• Kidsave News and Stories

Chief Kpanabum (chief of the Jong Chiefdom in Sierra Leone) thanked orphanage director Matilda and her team for housing hundreds of children orphaned by Ebola over the last seven years. At a well-attended reunification ceremony he said, “You have worked well to protect the lives of orphans in our chiefdom and district in general, at a time when everybody was fighting to save his or her own life."

"Today is another day," added Chief Probyn of Sierra Leone’s Bonthe District Council, "where FID and Kidsave have come to find another home for the children you have worked hard to protect and save. I’ll tell you and all present here, that finding living families for the children that have lived in your orphanage since 2014-2015 is the right decision, as these children need to learn how to become responsible parents and citizens. This can only happen outside the orphanage and in the communities, as our children need to know and learn our culture and traditions, and how to live peaceably with one another.”

This ceremony celebrated the reuniting of thirteen orphans with kin after an intensive family-tracing and home assessment effort by Kidsave’s partner FID and its social workers. The children had been living in an orphanage that was overcrowded and unable to adequately care for and feed them, and as these children were now over thirteen years old and had an idea where they might have kin, the work to find those kin was now afoot in earnest.

That search was successful! Each family member found for these thirteen children was excited to hear that the children wanted to live with them again -- having spent over five years in the orphanage after their parents were lost to the Ebola virus. “Children are our greatest asset,” the chief added, “and we must spend all our efforts to provide them the enabling environment and support to grow and develop in a caring and loving home.”

One of the thirteen was Salaymatu, who was reunified with her uncle Mustapha, forgiving him for abandoning her years earlier when he thought she was dying. She was seven years old when Ebola killed her parents in Kanga in 2015. She was unconscious when she was taken to the treatment center in Kenema after showing symptoms of the virus. After her treatment, she didn’t know exactly where she was until a health worker who knew her late parents took her to the Matilda orphanage In Mattru.

After reuniting in June with her uncle she said, “Today will be written in my life story book as a day when I was destined to experience community living; to live with someone of my family who had thought I was going to die because the Ebola virus had killed his elder brother (my father) and my mother. Life has not been easy in the orphanage; but I thank God for the shelter and accommodation provided by orphanage until today."

"Showing me around our family compound and introducing me to other community members as a native of my village, tells me that I could have become a real stranger in my paternal home if I’d fully grown up in the orphanage. I could not have learned the way of life of my people and our traditions. Thank you, Kidsave, for paving the way for me to grow and learn the things of our ancestors.”

Links:

• Kidsave's work in Sierra Leone
• About Kidsave
• Kidsave's model

• Presenting the Kidsave model to local leaders (DOCX)
• Children at the orphanage, saying goodbye. (DOCX)