For little hearts to heal

The "orphanage" that Davin used to live in have agreed for Katie and I to help search for other birth family members of the children resident in their care.  We both feel very passionate about this and are very excited and hopeful of helping to locate more family members.  Last week we started going through the childrens files and were quite amazed by the amount of information contained in some of them.  We feel hopeful that we will be able to track some other families down and that Davin won't be an isolated case.

When we were resettling Davin, the head social worker took another file of a brother and sister who are resident in the "orphanage" along with us because he knew from the details in the file that they were from the same area.  We were really surprised when the police officer dealing with Davins case, recognized the photographs of the children immediately and told us a story that amazed us.

Apparently the children had been in the care of their mother but were taken off her because of concerns about their safety. When their father and paternal Grandmother heard about this, they quickly went to the police station and begged to be allowed to take custody of the children, but the police officer dealing with the case angrily told them that the children were now going to go into an "orphanage" and refused to tell them which one.  This all happened 15 months ago.  Can you imagine the agony they must have gone through over the last 15 months? 

I think sometimes it is really difficult looking at situations here with a Western mindset because it's difficult to imagine how this could ever happen.  But unfortunately, it seems that people in power here can sometimes play "God" and the average person often feels powerless to do anything about it.  Also, when money might be tight, it makes it difficult to go searching around all the different orphanages in Uganda for your Grandchildren when there are literally thousands of them here.  What if you don't own a car, what if you can't take time off work to search them or you will be sacked, what if you don't have access to a mobile or airtime to phone around them?

When we turned up last week in their village and found the Grandmother, she was absolutely overwhelmed.  She started shouting to her neighbours in Luganda, "They've found the babies, they've found the babies".  Here is a photo I took of her at the time, kneeling down with one of the childrens aunties as they looked at an uptodate photograph of them.

Then two days ago, the childrens father visited the "orphanage" to see his children  for the first time in 15 months and then he visited again today bringing along the childrens Grandmother.

It was such a wonderful day.  It was so obvious how much they loved these children and how determined they are for the children to be resettled back with them.  Over the next few weeks they are going to start visiting the children regularly, building up a bond and attachment with them and working towards a plan for the children to return home soon.

I spent quite a lot of time with these two children in the early days and witnessed countless Western visitors wanting to adopt the little boy who always had a smile on his face.  I would always tell them that he had a sibling and that would usually quickly turn them off the idea.  Thank goodness nobody adopted them.

I was so excited for the children today and by witnessing the amazing love that was being poured all over them.  I knelt down and  kept saying "This is your Jajja and this is your Dada.  This is your Jajja and this is your Dada" and they just couldn't stop smiling.

If you are the praying kind, please can you pray that the bonding process is really successful between all of them and that little hurt hearts heal.  It's a traumatic experience being in an "orphanage" and separated from your family for so long.  Please also pray for the father to get a job so that he can provide for his family.

One of the biggest lessons I have learnt over the last few months is that not all children in "orphanages" are orphans,  that they weren't all abused and unwanted.  There are many examples of miscarriages of justice going on in the "orphanage" business and unfortunately, business is what it often is.  If only "orphanges" started tracing these childrens families and finding birth parents/extended family members who were given the chance to look after them and love them, then the landscape of insitutional care would look very different here.

How can you say that these childrens families don't want them, if nobody is even looking for them or  giving them the chance?