What Orphans and Vulnerable Children Actually Need

Orphans and vulnerable children are the first group named on our registration certificate. The phrase is used so often in development work that it has gone slightly abstract, so it is worth being concrete about who it means and what they actually need.

Who the phrase covers

It is broader than children who have lost both parents. In practice it includes children who have lost one parent and whose surviving parent cannot cope, children living with grandparents or older siblings, children in households where a parent is seriously ill or disabled, and children who are in a family but whose basic needs are not being met.

The common thread is not the absence of adults. It is the absence of an adult with the capacity to protect them.

What they need that is not money

One reliable adult. The single strongest predictor of how a vulnerable child fares is whether there is at least one adult consistently in their corner. Not a programme. A person who notices when something changes.

To stay in their community. Wherever it is safe, children do better remaining with extended family and neighbours who know them than being moved somewhere unfamiliar. Support that keeps a household functioning usually beats support that relocates a child.

School, and the things that make school possible. Not only fees. A uniform that fits, shoes, sanitary towels, and food, because a hungry child does not learn and a girl without sanitary protection misses a week each month.

Not to be identified as the charity case. Children know when they are singled out. Help delivered visibly at school, or announced publicly, costs them standing among their peers. Discretion is not a nicety.

Routine. Children who have lost a great deal need predictability more than variety. Knowing what happens tomorrow is itself a form of security.

What tends not to work

One-off gestures. A single delivery of gifts changes nothing and can unsettle a household. It also teaches children that help arrives randomly rather than reliably.

Visits that are really for the visitor. Groups arriving to spend an afternoon and take photographs cost the caregivers a day of work and give the children an attachment that ends abruptly.

Support that bypasses the caregiver. Giving directly to a child, over the head of the grandmother raising them, undermines the person who has to keep the household running after you leave.

Assuming money is the whole answer. Some households need cash. Many need someone to help with an application, a referral, or an argument with a school.

The paperwork problem

A recurring pattern: a child qualifies for something and never receives it, because the adult caring for them could not navigate the process.

A grandmother in her seventies raising three grandchildren may not know which office handles what, may not be able to travel there, and may not have the documents. The support exists. The route to it does not.

This is a large part of what advocacy means for us. Not campaigning, but sitting with someone, working out what they qualify for, and following it through however many visits it takes.

Protecting children properly

Anyone working with vulnerable children carries obligations that are not optional.

Children should not be alone with an adult who has not been properly introduced and accountable. Photographs of children require the consent of a guardian, in writing, before anything is published. Details that identify a child's circumstances should not be shared casually, including in fundraising.

We hold to these even where breaking them would raise money. A story that increases donations at the cost of a child's privacy is not a trade we are willing to make.

How you can help

The most useful thing is usually the least dramatic: supporting the household so the child can stay in it. Supplies that free up a caregiver's small income for school costs. A reliable monthly visit. Help with a form.

If you know a household in Ruiru where children are struggling, tell us. If you would like to support this work, our M-Pesa paybill is 400200, account 1151353, and the donate page has the rest.