Orphans International World Congress IV

“Children’s Health Issues in the Developing World”

[draft]

Orphans International Worldwide

455 Main Street Suite #418

New York, NY 10044

212-755-7285

Email: congress@oiww.org

ORPHANS INTERNATIONAL TO HOLD WORLD CONGRESS IV:

CHILDREN’S HEALTH ISSUES IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD

New York, NY -- Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW), a Manhattan-based NGO, will be holding Orphans International World Congress IV: “Children’s Health Issues in the Developing World” on Saturday, October 25th, 2008. The fall conference will be held at the Farkas Auditorium of NYU School of Medicine, 550 First Avenue at 33rd Street, New York, NY 10016. The main event will be held from 1:00 to 4:00pm followed by an information session on OIWW from 4:00pm to 5:00pm. Tickets are $20.00 for general admission and $10.00 with a valid student ID. Purchase via PayPal, account email congress@oiww.org. For more information or to register for the conference, go to www.oiww.org, contact us by email at congress@oiww.org, or telephone at 212-755-7285. 

With the assistance of lifelong humanitarians and sociopolitical activists like Peter Yarrow, this conference will examine the issues surrounding the health of children in the developing world.  The overall goal of the conference is to educate and move attendees to action to meet the health needs of children globally. 

The Congress will produce “think tank-like” results which can be implemented at various OIWW projects where we are erecting health clinics to support our orphans. Our speakers are top professionals in the health sector who are concerned with the well-being of disadvantaged children.

The current list of keynote speakers includes:

• Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH, Health Coordinator, Millennium Village Project ­­­

       – “Challenges of Child Survival in Africa”

• Dr. Jane Aronson, The ‘Orphan Doctor’ and Founder of Worldwide Orphans Foundation

       – “Life in the Orphanage: How Children Are Affected by Institutionalization”  

• Corinne Woods,Campaign Manager, HIV/AIDS Section, UNICEF

       – “The Global Challenges of Children with HIV/AIDS”

• Emmanuel d’Harcourt, MD, MPH, Senior Technical Advisor, Child Survival, The IRC

       – “Children’s Health in Fragile States: Challenges and Ways Forward”

• Dr. Richard Alderslade, Chief Executive, Children’s High Level Group

       – “Improving Services for Children in Eastern Europe”

• Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary, renowned American singer and social activist

       – “Witnessing the Effects of Agent Orange on Vietnamese Children, Three Generations Later”

Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW) is a non-governmental organization associated with the U.N. Department of Public Information. It was founded by former investment banker Jim Luce in 1999 as a direct response to the dire circumstances facing orphaned children. OIWW has established a network of legal, locally incorporated projects to house and educate children orphaned and abandoned after the 2004 Tsunami in Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and Hurricane Jeanne in Haiti. In 2009 we will be caring for AIDS affected orphans in Moshi, Tanzania. Orphans International America is a New York state incorporated 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation.  

ALL PROCEEDS GO TO OI HAITI HURRICANE RELIEF

SPEECH: Ending Orphanages Globally – 10-25-08
OI Worldwide World Congress IV at N.Y.U. Medical School

Today, I am extraordinarily pleased to announce to this honored assembly – our Fourth World Congress, held at N.Y.U. Medical School – the expanded mission of Orphans International Worldwide: Ending Orphanages Globally.

But first, let me begin by thanking the many individuals who made today not only possible but outstanding:

• Dr. Donald Hoskins, president of the Board of Directors of Orphans International America, and the cornerstone of our organization;
• Today’s moderator, Dr. Harriet Katz, a friend and colleague, who moderated our last panel at the United Nations on Global Warming;
• Dr. Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, whose work on the Millennium Village Project I have been following avidly for years and am honored to meet today;
• Dr. Jane Aronson, America’s foremost expert on the conditions of adoptive children in the developing world, whom I met last summer;
• Dr. Emmanuel d’Harcourt, from the International Rescue Committee, the important NGO that outfitted our health clinic in Indonesia after the Tsunami;
• Both Dr. Richard Alderslade, Chief Executive of the Children’s High Level Group, and Dr. Corinne Woods, HIV/AIDS Section of UNICEF, whom I have just had the privilege of meeting today;
• And my dear friend and mentor, Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul & Mary – famed singer and social activist – who will perform for us yet again on Dec. 1.

Certain OI volunteers also need to be acknowledged:

• Linda Stanley, whose blood, sweat, tears – and laughter – seem to water the garden of our organization…
• Gina Bermingham, OI senior intern to Tanzania, plus OI Senior Interns Roxanne Arthur, Kate Mooney, Lianne Zohn, and, finally,
• Rex Belgarde, our senior intern whose extraordinary work building today’s Congress has earned him special recognition with Orphans International.

The mission of Orphans International Worldwide, which began as “Raising Global Citizens,” has been expanded with that vision through ten years of experience.  Today our mission statement has evolved into “Ending Orphanages Globally.”

In 1998, I began to dedicate my life and our organization to developing a small home alternative to traditional orphanage “warehouses,” huge facilities where staff rotate in shifts and children have no constant adult to bond with.  I dedicated myself fully to this cause when I left Wall Street after the Tsunami of 2004.

My adopted son Mathew – I met him in 1995 when he was ten months old – is sitting here with us today, now a teenager and a testimony that we can make a difference to the lives of children in the developing world.

Our children in Haiti and Indonesia, as well as Tanzania and Sri Lanka, are raised according to “Mathew’s Rule” – that we treat the children in our care the way in which we would treat our own children.  Since the beginning – at the end of the last century – we have been “Raising Global Citizens,” and Mathew is as global as they come.  Yet much has changed over the last thirteen years since I first met Mathew.

Now, with sixteen million AIDS orphans in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, and with a global economic meltdown bouncing from Indianapolis, Hamburg, and Singapore – to Indonesia, Haiti, and Sri Lanka.  My original model needs to be strengthened.

We cannot house all of the children orphaned by disease, disaster and economic collapse.  Yet we have come to realize that almost every orphan in the developing world can be housed through existing homes, through existing families.

I am excited at this moment in time to introduce Orphans International Family Care – providing the mechanisms needed to house orphans within their own extended families.  And as a result, I can announce an End to Orphanages Globally by 2050.

The OI Family Care Model, developed by a team led by Toni Cela, applies the simple concept of kinship care – supporting extended family members’ ability to provide temporary or permanent care for orphaned children.

According to the United Nations, UNICEF, and Save the Children:

• The number of orphans worldwide is estimated at 210 million, rapidly increasing due to the AIDS epidemic, natural disasters, low world health standards, immense poverty, and food shortages made worse now by our global financial collapse.

Some countries are more in need than others.  Here are three that Orphans International are in:

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, resulting in severe impacts on child health and well-being.  Today, 70% of the Haitian population lives on less than $1 per day.

• Daily food insecurity affects 40% of households.  One-fourth of all Haitian children suffer from malnutrition. 
• In addition, 40% of the population has no access to basic healthcare. 
• Per capita annual health spending – both public and private – averages $21, compared with an average of $281 for all of Latin America – less than 10%.

Indonesia faces even more economic and structural insecurity.  A tragic 52% of Indonesians live below the poverty line, on less than $2 per day.  The malnutrition rate is 28% for children under the age of five.

• Nearly 25% of the population does not have access to safe drinking water.
• Although nearly 95% of the school age population is enrolled in primary school that number plummets to just over 55% for secondary school enrollment.

Tanzania is ranked one of the world’s poorest countries.  Tanzania has one of the lowest rates of secondary school enrollment in the entire world. 

• 85% of children are enrolled in primary school; however, 20% of these children drop out of primary school before graduation, and only 5% go on to secondary school.
• Tanzania’s annual per capital income is $390.  With 40% of its people in Tanzania living in chronic food deficit regions due to irregular rainfall.  Of children under five years old, 38% are chronically malnourished.  Of the total population, 30% is malnourished.
• Malaria is the leading killer of children in Tanzania.  The mortality rate for children under 5 years old is 118 for every 1,000 births.  The life expectancy for a child born in Tanzania today is 52 years.

These cold, abstract numbers hide unimaginable misery which only adds to the desperation of orphaned children in the developing world.

Orphans International is open today in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Haiti, and Tanzania, beginning to move children into the homes of their own extended families. 

We are on the ground and ready to move forward in many other countries stretched across three continents: the Philippines in Asia & the Pacific, Ghana in West Africa, and the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean and South America.

Orphans International Family Care focuses on three primary objectives:

1) Education – providing for tuition, uniforms, and materials, as well as access to Internet-connected computer labs;

2)        Health Care – providing health clinic services on-site; and

3)        Nutrition – providing food assistance and nutritional education.

Research shows what your hearty already knows: that “kinship care,” OI Family-Care, results in better social, emotional, educational, and health outcomes for the child’s well-being than institutional care.  At our next Congress, medical, educational, and social professionals will elaborate on this.

The OI Family Care model, in contrast to institutional orphanages, strengthens the social and emotional network of the child by connecting him or her to family, friends, neighbors.  You will hear more at our next Convention,  from those with doctorates from Columbia, Harvard, and N.Y.U.

Orphans placed in kinship care – in OI Family Care – are also able to maintain their linguistic, cultural, religious, and family traditions.  The OI Family Care model also offers more security and stability for the child, and usually helps keep the child in their same community and school, requiring less government intervention.

I will save the science of kinship care for our next Congress.  It is enough to say: These relationships are conduits for the transmission of knowledge and culture.  They are essential to successful transition into independent living as an adult.

I dedicate myself and my organization to use these relationship to End Orphanages Globally.

This is an ambitious goal, yet I believe with all my heart it is achievable.  With your assistance — as interns, volunteers, committee members or chairs, Board members, staff, or colleagues — we can together END the sorry lot of the world’s “orphan warehouses.”  We can give each and every orphaned child back to a family who will raise them as we would raise our own – with hope and dignity and love.  Working together, we can make a place at the table for all the children of the world.

Orphans International World Congress IV (2008)