Kidsave Sierra Leone: Reuniting Orphan with Family

“Social worker-sleuth” ought to be the job title of Kidsave’s team in Sierra Leone, working to reunite children orphaned by Ebola with family members.  Take the case of Paul, a 11-year-old who has spent the last 2.5 years in an orphanage in Pujehun. 

Orphanage records offered a clue – the last known village of his family: Dumagbe.  Social workers travelled by motor bike 46 km to Dumagbe, found the village head and showed him Paul’s photo. Cautious and hesitant to give them information, however, he sent them to another village 8 km away – accessible only on a foot path – a two-hour walk.  There, they found a family member who knew Paul and helped find his grandmother, Rachael, who took him in to live with her.

In the case of Betty, her family’s last known home was Koribondo, 18 km from her orphanage in Bo. Arriving in Koribondo, social workers learned that the family had moved to Kenema, another 24 km away. But this time, they were able to obtain direct contact information for her grandmother in Kenema, who agreed to take her into her home.

Paul and Betty were happy to be back with their grandmothers in their families and villages.

Kidsave’s team of three social workers, Edifra, Smith and Christopher, have reunited 50 children with family members over the last year and placed 16 children in non-kin homes where a kin-placement was not possible.  In those cases, Kidsave hosted activities at which orphans and families interested in helping the kids met and began to get to know one another.  Through these events and careful vetting Kidsave is giving orphaned children a good family and a real future. 

This work relies on donations to Kidsave. Working with our partners, we are now focusing on a second group of 65 Ebola orphans, hoping to find them families over the next six months and developing a Family Economic Strengthening program to insure families who need help can maintain the child in their home.

We appreciate your help!  

$25 will help provide food for a community gathering to help children who can’t be reunified meet interested families.

 $115 will pay for one child’s bed kit (a mattress, sheets, pillow and toiletries).

 $325 will help one child move into a family.

 $1,000 will help ten children find their biological relatives and reunite. 

Links:

• Kidsave in Sierra Leone
• What is "hosting?"
• Kidsave's creates change

When he was 12, Bockarie lost both parents to the Ebola crisis. He languished in an orphanage for almost two years; during that time no one reached out to help him. Over the past few months, Kidsave searched for Bockarie’s grandmother and recently reunited them. Bockarie has now moved in with his grandmother permanently.

Kidsave in Sierra Leone is rescuing children, including Bockarie, who have been languishing in orphanages since the Ebola crisis, and many happy reunions are occurring in Puejehun and Bo as a result of this work.

Kidsave’s focus in Sierra Leone is twofold -- searching for biological or extended families for children who have lost one or both parents to Ebola, and if a child cannot be reunified with family members who knew and loved them, then finding a good local host family to advocate for the child, get him or her out of the orphanage and on the path to a permanent loving family.

A total of 22 children were reunited with their families in December and January. Many tears of joy were shed as children saw their aunts, uncles and grandmothers for the first time in two years during the reunification process.  The Christmas holidays were also an opportunity for the children who could not be reunified with their biological families to meet families in the community interested in helping them. At the beginning of March five families had signed up to be foster parents for these children.

Kidsave Sierra Leone needs support. We have a group of 65 children in our control group whom the government is asking to participate in the reunification program, as our efforts have proven successful.  We need $30,000 in funding to help these 65 children.

 $25 will help provide food for a community gathering to meet the children
 $115 will pay for one child’s bed kit – a mattress, sheets, pillow and toiletries.
 $325 will help one child move into a family.
 $1,000 will help ten children find their biological relatives and reunite.