Growing out of an orphanage

What do you think of when you think of an orphanage?

Babies in cots lined up along the walls?


Toddlers sat in the middle of a room, all playing with some basic toys together?


What images come to mind?


What age child are you thinking of?

The image many of us have in our minds is of a young child.  Many will think of babies and some will have some primary school aged children at the forefront of their thoughts.


And yes, there are some younger children who come into orphanages/institutionalised settings but these are normally the children who can be resettled quickest.  If resettlement isn't an option then these are often the most likely to be found in-country options.

It seems everyone wants a baby!

And yet there are the majority who are older children.  Teenagers even.  When do we ask what happens to them?

You see the truth is, there are a huge amount of older children who simply age out of orphanages.  Those who are too old for adoption as they are post 16.  Those who's behaviour may be slightly more challenging due to the trauma they have suffered in their young lives.  Those who are delayed in their learning/development, just because of the fact they have been trapped in an institutional setting. 

What happens to them?

They are children just the same as the babies and toddlers are!  In fact, soon enough, these toddlers will become the teenagers of tomorrow.  But somehow we think of them in a different light, simply due to their age.

We all go weak at the knees at the thought of these younger children living in horrid conditions, without a mother's love, but when that child grows, we almost allow the situation to become acceptable.  We turn a blind eye as though their age makes them more able to survive and less likely to need our help.

For many of us, we don't give a second thought about their welfare.  We may send sponsor money and feel like we're doing our bit.

You see some children will only have one option -
To age out of an orphanage.

They grow up insitutionalised and then they hit late teens. 

Then another horror story begins......

I have seen boys chased off an orphanage site simply due to their age.  You see they are old enough now to ask questions and challenge authority.  They are deemed to be too big a problem by the caregivers, if you can call them that?  They are left, outside the grounds, to fend for themselves!  I have been the one, on the other side of the world sometimes, to answer phone calls and emails, when no one else cared.  Hearing a teenage boy so troubled and anxious as to what will happen now that he has lost his place he called 'home'.  I have advocated for their well being and safety and wherever possible tried to help in planning and arranging somewhere safe for these young people to stay.  I have seen a UK charity turn their back on these young people.  Once they were the 'babies' who brought in the sponsorship money, now deemed a burden. 

I know of a young boy, who is still sponsored via the UK, who is no longer welcome in the grounds of the orphanage.  Each morning he turns up asking for food, and each morning, he is turned away! 

They are still children.  They are still vulnerable.  They still need the love of a family, even though governments don't believe this is possible post 16.  They want to belong.

How many times can I advocate for these children, on behalf of them, pleading with a UK charity to make a change and care for them, as they promise to do so in all their documents?  How many times will UK trustees turn their backs on these individuals as if they no longer matter? 

I can't close my heart to them, how can they say they care and feel passionate about the work of their charity and then appear too busy to do anything?  It is appalling!  It totally and utterly stinks! 

What can you do to get justice for these children?  These few have become true survivors and are learning to stand on their own two feet in tough times, but there will be the next group and the group after that!  Every baby eventually turns into a teenager......can the story continue in this way?

Can charities running instituations, keep getting away with this poor practice?

There is hope in among all this.  There are success stories and there are people willing to help.