Schools to Educate and Homes to House

March 27th, 2008 by Orphfund

An interview with Anne-Sophie Cardinal, a Canadian who is a Volunteer and Project Assistant with Orphfund, an international volunteer-based NGO specializing in helping orphans and street children.

What is the primary purpose of Orphfund?

It is estimated that there are over 100 million orphans and street children in today’s world and this enormous figure continues to grow rapidly. This situation results from the prevailing inequalities of our world, from brutal wars, from diseases, from famine or from natural disasters. HIV also contributes to this alarming figure.
I am a volunteer for a wonderful NGO named Orphfund, which is a small-scale, grassroots, non-profit organization committed to helping the lives of all children living in poverty around the world, regardless of race and religion. All volunteers involved with Orphfund are from various countries around the globe (UK, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Spain). They have in common one thing: that they believe that every single child on Earth should have access to education, health care and to a chance to develop themselves as human beings.

Witnessing how a group of united individuals and combined efforts can actually change the lives of these children, who are not as lucky as those from our Western reality, you can really feel allayed to know that mankind can indeed create wonderful and beneficial initiatives! It is so easy to help others, there is NO WAY I would stop my involvement in these brilliant projects Orphfund delivers and whom I truly feel lucky to be a part of!

In the latest project where we assisted orphans in the remote north of Sierra Leone, I saw children’s faces change, shifting from constant nostalgia or sadness because of hunger and tiredness to displaying child-like expressions and laughter! Those moments were priceless and they are too easy to make happen for us not to continue to create them.
Achieving this ideal is a colossal task. At Orphfund, we have decided to do everything we can to positively impact the lives of orphans and street children around the world. How is Orphfund so different from other organizations? It is very different in that all donations fundraised for the projects go directly to the children! It may seem very simple, but considering that in the past, big NGOs have misused the donations received from people full of goodwill, it is very reassuring to know for a fact that your donation gets used properly.

Our aims are:

• Help street children and orphans worldwide to live a life they want, away from poverty and deprivation;
• Provide resources, support and guidance;
• Build homes for orphans, and schools to educate;
• Bring opportunities to children by providing training and professional skills that will allow them to earn a living;
• Raise global awareness of the battle street children face everyday;
• Provide sustainable self sufficient solutions to empower the orphans and street children on a long-term basis.

How did Orphfund get started?

Orphfund was founded by Steve Argent, from the UK. Steve had worked for about 50 of the world’s biggest charities for about 6 years and began to recognize the corruption and waste within many of them, such as excessive expenditure on advertising, wages, big offices, 1st class flights, brand new land-cruisers, etc. He said, “I decided to follow where my passions lay and began to dream of creating a charity that would help orphans in the world’s poorest countries as I felt they were the most desperate of all causes.” But to make Orphfund different Steve wanted to make a charity that was powered purely by volunteers and one that would run simple, self sustaining, grass-root projects that bring life changing opportunities to the children it helps.

Argent visited and researched orphanages in Kenya before taking part in his first volunteer project in Ghana, where a school was built in small village. Here he recognized the huge impact a project like this could have on a community living in poverty. Over the past 3 years, Steve has met like-minded people and slowly, a network has been built that sees Orphfund where we are today.

How exactly do you help the street children and orphans?

In order to explain how Orphfund’s projects are contributing to making this world a better place, we should take a closer look at our most recent project, which took place in January and February 2008 in Sierra Leone.

After assessing the needs of the most desperate children of Sierra Leone, Orphfund decided that the children from the isolated northern town of Kamakwie and the children living in the streets of Freetown would be our target for the 2008 project. Due to the repercussions of the brutal war that ended in 2001, deficient health care and extreme poverty, an exorbitant amount of children have become vulnerable orphans and street children without anyone to look after them and care for them. There is virtually no assistance currently being offered to the remote Kamakwie area as well as to the children living in the streets of the capital. This is why these children lack food, health care, education and sustainable development opportunities that will enable them to have a brighter future.

These are the solutions Orphfund brought to the local communities of Sierra Leone in 2008:

Refurbishing and Assisting - Home for Orphans 1:

In the remote northern town of Kamakwie, we are running two homes for orphans. The first one was a locally run orphanage that was closing down due to lack of funds, in August 2007 we built a new home and are now providing them with food, clean water, clothing, health care, school fees and all other expenses for the 41 children living there. As tailoring is a special skill to have, we have bought them sewing machines as well as materials for knitting, so that they can have training and generate a small income.

Building and Assisting – Home for Orphans 2:

We have registered over 400 orphans and vulnerable children in the area of Kamakwie, and to accommodate this problem we created a new home for those in need. This second home for orphans is allowing 40 more children to live safely in a loving environment, gain access to education and benefit from proper health care.

Garden and Farm:

We have planted a large vegetable garden and fruit tree plantation including crops such as: beans, peanuts, potatoes, watermelons, okra, tomatoes, carrots, corn, mangoes, bananas. We have also build chicken pens for 75 chickens and a goat house for about 30 goats. These two initiatives will help in the sustainable running of the two homes for orphans.

Safehouse for Street Children in Freetown:

Here we have rented a (very beautiful and spacious) house for the next upcoming two years. An incredibly large number of street children can be found begging, working and living in the streets of the capital, Freetown. Most of these children lost their parents in the war and have survived on the streets for many years. Those children live at the rubbish dump, at the ferry terminal, at the central market, under the main bridge of the city, at the cinema house or in the streets… It goes without saying that most of them had to quit school because they couldn’t afford the fees despite all their hard work (which are only about 10 USD per year!). It is very sad. We have identified 37 children who will move into the safehouse that we will provide for them within the next several weeks. They will get food twice a day, have the chance to go back to school, get proper health care, develop professional skills and even run a small shop assisting the running of the home.

Voilà! This is what was achieved, thanks to wonderful individuals throughout the world who were generous and donated for these projects. Without their contribution, Orphfund would not exist and these 120 young Sierra Leoneans and all the children from other countries where Orphfund has done projects (Cambodia, Tibet) would have a much more difficult life.

How can someone get involved with your organization?

There are many people in our societies feeling the need to do something to change the way those vulnerable children live around the globe, but they are perhaps puzzled as to how can one actually contribute to the bettering of the world in a direct and tangible way. As a volunteer having taken part in two of Orphfund’s projects, I can assert that it truly is easier than we think, to change the world.

The reason why I got involved with Orphfund is that I know that the totality of the funds I raise for our projects will go directly to the children in need! I personally do not know of any other charity that uses 100% of the donations for their projects, without devoting a percentage to administrative costs.

Orphfund being a relatively small-scale, grassroots NGO, we are fully open to suggestions and comments. Anyone can get involved! There are several ways to do so:

1. Donate Funds!It is incredible how the smallest amount of money can change the life of a child, in a split second. You really have to be there to realize how a small sum goes a long way. Of course, the best way to help Orphfund help orphans and street children in the most direct way possible is to donate funds. Simply by sacrificing one or our taken-for-granted Western luxuries, lives of children can be improved and even saved.

   Our homes for orphans are expensive to run and Orphfund simply needs people who are keen in helping in a constant fashion. This is why we have set-up a new Sponsorship Program. But WAIT A SECOND please, don’t worry! : This is not the typical sponsorship system, in which the money goes “who knows where?” and where you help only one child at the time. NO, this is different. You still get assigned a specific child (you can pick a girl or a boy) who is currently living in one of the three homes we’re supporting in Sierra Leone, but the monthly donation goes towards the child’s home as a whole. This means that the money assists in the global cost of the running of the home (food, health care, school fees, shoes, clothes, hygiene products, etc) rather than supporting one child only.

   Please email us if you are interested in sponsoring a child or if you just want to make a one-time donation.

2. Become a volunteer and embark for a fantastic on-site experience!You feel like helping in some more hands-on kind of way? The next project should take place in 2009 in Uganda. All of our scheduled programs are funded by our volunteers, including their air fare and food during the journey. Each participant is required to fundraise approximately £1000 to £1500 ($2000 USD to $3000 USD) for the project they want to be a part of (this amount varies, depending on the amount of volunteers and the overall cost for each project).
   We also encourage follow up volunteer work at any of our projects. This is more flexible and allows individuals to work and teach at a home or school for a period that suits them. It’s great for the children to meet more willing volunteers and allows Orphfund to keep a close eye on how our projects are running and developing.
3. Donate your skills!You are a musician? A graphic or website designer? A translator? A fundraising pro? A photographer? A doctor or a nurse? A journalist? An events’ coordinator? You have a printing company? Do you own a restaurant? Would you like to host an Orphfund Fundraising event?

   Since we run solely on the goodwill of mighty volunteers and do not want to spend any money on administrative costs, we always need help fulfilling all aspects of the operations and fundraising. We are open do suggestions and creativity!

Please view Orphfund’s profile and contact us (orphfund [at] yahoo.ca) for any comments, questions, suggestions or if you want to host a fundraising event.
We have also created a photography group on Flickr, which you are most welcome to join.

So, do you feel like getting involved? Ask the hundreds of children that now have a home, food, proper health care, professional training and empowering sustainable opportunities if you should!

There is a new search engine called Ethicle. It is wonderful, as it is affiliated with Google and is just as accurate. However, every time you make a search and click “Enter”, it automatically donates $0.01 USD to the charity of your choice. Orphfund has just been approved to be one of those NGOs! So, I would like to suggest that you make Ethicle your homepage and select Orphfund as one of the charities they wish to support. They can do so by going on the “More organizations” link.

Posted in Articles, Children and Youth, Education, Orphanages