Love Reaches Out

Children adopted at a distance: in the Phillipines
Children make up thirty percent of the world’s poor, and about 11 million children die every year (29,000 a day) before the age of five, primarily of preventable causes. For those who make it past that age, many will carry the marks of abject poverty: mental and physical retardation, permanent injuries, and extreme social vulnerability. In the global South, one child in three lives in dangerously unsanitary conditions, and one in five has no access to potable water. Of children between the ages of 7 and 18, 140 million have never gone to school.

These numbers are deeply troubling. At the same time, it is heartening that people worldwide seem to respond with particular readiness to children’s suffering. For example, the Adoption at a Distance (AAD) program, sponsored by the Focolare’s New Families movement, has reached 30,000 children so far and has supported projects in 52 countries in Africa, Europe, Central and South America, Asia, and the Middle East.

Lebanon’s Cry for Help
AAD came to life in the late 1970s, a time when civil war raged in Lebanon. As news of children who had been left parentless and in urgent need of care reached the developed world, the consciences of many stirred, and families stepped forward with offers of adoption. Faced with this outpouring of generosity, Lebanon responded by requesting that the international community not take away its children but help them remain in their homeland. New Families embraced Lebanon’s cry for help and started its Adoption at a Distance program.

Local members of New Families in target countries initiate each adoption at a distance. The originating member singles out a need, communicates it to AAD and commits to following up with the recipients throughout the period of adoption. Since the Focolare Movement is present in 182 nations, the possibilities for direct outreach cover much of the planet.

Nairobi’s Street Children
“It all started with Samuel,” said a medical doctor and member of New Families in Kenya. “On my way to the post office, I would see one of Nairobi’s street children standing by the door day after day, always asking for money. One day, I saw that he had an infected cut on his foot and I took him to my office to treat it. Later, I went to meet his mother. She was a very responsible person, and her family meant everything to her, but she had no money. Shortly afterwards, she called me to say that Samuel and his brother had been arrested for stealing. We went to court with them and got them freed on a promise to send them to school. Money arrived from AAD, and the boys finally settled into school.”

AAD impacts not only the sponsored child, but his or her whole family and the surrounding community as well. By supporting and empowering families, AAD contributes to refashioning the social fabric of communities.

In Nigeria, a mother of several children was very happy when one of her children was adopted at a distance by someone from another country. The regular money really made a difference for the whole family. However, she had just received the money one day when a neighbor knocked on her door asking for help with her desperately sick child. The neighbor was so poor that she couldn’t even take the child to the hospital. The woman took 300 nairas ($3) and gave them to her neighbor. The love and generosity that had originated so far away was being passed on, helping more than just one person or one family. The following day the mother who had given of her little received 1000 nairas ($10) from a cousin.

Larger Local Projects
AAD supports larger local projects as well. There are 98 currently underway, including community support centers with outpatient healthcare, day care, schools, artisan workshops, nutritional programs targeting undernourishment and malnutrition, after-school tutoring and job training centers and clinics for the distribution of medical care and medicines. Sponsorship can help in many ways such as ensuring a meal a day for a family, buying school supplies, providing basic healthcare, helping to pay salaries of teachers and setting up literacy projects.

Focusing on children often involves focusing on their parents as well—that is why the creation of local educational curricula to address parenting, family life, hygiene, and job training in an encouraging environment that provides psychological and social support, and often micro-credit, is so important.

What for the sponsor is the price of a cup of coffee a day becomes an extraordinarily effective humanitarian intervention that brings tangible relief to others.

In a recent initiative that went beyond the usual adoption at a distance, AAD committed to building some 150 small houses for families in the Philippines who were so poor that they lived in a fetid slum of cardboard and corrugated iron shelters. The goal was to get the children off the streets and into safe spaces where they could study free from crime and abuse.

Andrea Turatti, who leads the international AAD program at the New Families Headquarters in Italy, emphasizes that initiatives such as this benefit both those who receive and those who give, beyond the mere fact of money passing hands: “In 20 days we were able to raise enough money for four single unit homes. That’s very encouraging! But this is not just a question of receiving financial assistance. Before being awarded the house, the recipients must follow a program and commit to an agreed upon set of guidelines. In this case these included giving up drugs, alcohol and gambling and committing to work, saving and solidarity. They also agreed to pay partial rent, which will help finance the project.”

A Global Family
Sponsors in turn discover how they are a vital part of the global human family. Events in foreign countries are suddenly deeply relevant to them because they concern people who are known to them by face and name. As news stories poured in from countries hit by the 2004 tsunami like Sri Lanka or Indonesia, for instance, letters reached AAD supporters: “Hi, my name is Odette, thanks for taking care of my parents and me. You are my second family.”

A small act of solidarity makes people deeply involved in the lives of others and builds paths that would never have crossed otherwise. Now these “others” become the objects of thoughts and prayers. Written correspondence often creates bonds of friendship between the sponsors, the children, and the families of the children, even though the contributions continue to flow through the New Humanity and New Families organizations. The effect is so invigorating that it is hard to resist the desire to involve friends, family and colleagues. Download the form

Love spreads. Little by little, solidarity builds a net that enfolds the entire world.