Home

The social stigma associated with abandoning one's child (in any culture) causes parents to decide in secret to abandon their children and with deep shame added to the devastating heartache.

Quietly plans are made to bring a child from a remote village to the city, on the pretext of visiting the marketplace or a distant relative. The child is brought to a busy street corner and told to wait a moment for momma to return with a drink of water. Momma never returns.

Abandoned children are sometimes carried deep into the forest or far out into the desert or a swamp and left to the wild to avoid the shameful mark of child abandonment.

When abandoned in populated areas sometimes there are orphanages or strangers homes to which the child is delivered. Sometimes there is none.

(Associated Press) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The strongest earthquake in more than 200 years rocked Haiti on Tuesday, collapsing a hospital where people screamed for help and heavily damaging the National Palace, U.N. peacekeeper headquarters and other buildings. U.S. officials reported bodies in the streets and an aid official described "total disaster and chaos."

Communications were widely disrupted, making it impossible to get a full picture of damage as powerful aftershocks shook a desperately poor country where many buildings are flimsy. Electricity was out in some places.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington that embassy personnel were "literally in the dark" after power failed.

"They reported structures down. They reported a lot of walls down. They did see a number of bodies in the street and on the sidewalk that had been hit by debris. So clearly, there's going to be serious loss of life in this," he said.

Abandoned children are the most helpless and most frequent victims of violence, disease, malnutrition and death. Without the support from their families, these children are exposed to the frightening dangers of abduction and sexual exploitation.

Many of these orphans have been traumatized by witnessing the ruthless murder of their parents or by helplessly watching them die of AIDS or starvation. Alone, with no one to raise them, abandoned children must resort to eating any scraps available and wandering the streets.

Emotionally and physically scarred, the future for these orphans is a bleak reminder of lost hope.

We devote our time and effort to building schools, medical clinics, feeding programs and children's homes that have become sanctuaries of love, laughter and hope rather than despair.