I don't know about you, but I've already reached "Haiti disaster overload". Yes, I want them to get help, but me watching the disaster on TV and listening to it on the news is not helping them. So, I'm sorry to contribute to your level of overload by putting stuff here too, but something else related to the disaster is starting to worry me, and I'm wondering if anyone else is noticing it too.
Here's what I've heard on the news:
1. The judge who approved/denied adoption was killed in the first earthquake.
2. Countries are fast-tracking orphans to come to them.
3. Human trafficking was *briefly* mentioned.
4. A story meant to highlight "people helping" followed a man who ran an orphanage. He had something like 30 children in his care, and was willing to take 60 more, but people were reluctant to give "orphans" over to him. One such infant was being looked after by his aunt, who was having trouble feeding him due to the lack of food available.
5. Just now on the news there was a story about a man who adopted a child, and noticed there was an address for the parents on the adoption papers. It was in a dangerous area, but he went there anyway to meet them. The parents had given their child up because they were unable to feed it, and were happy it was going to be taken care of. The man had also given up a child when he was younger (19?), because he hadn't been able to care for it.
That last story was presented in a happy-feel-good way. Yes, orphanages and adoptions are necessary... but perhaps they would be less necessary if other kinds of support was available? Those parents and that aunt obviously care for the children. If food banks, soup kitchens, or other supports were available, would these particular families need to be separated?
Food for thought.
2 comments:
And now we have the story of the American Baptists who dashed over to Haiti with great enthusiasm and not much common sense, nabbed a passle of little kitds and headed for the boarder. Uh Uh. No go. What on earth were they thinking? Or were they?
Even worse, I heard that:
1. half those kids have been verified to have living parents,
2. in many cases both parents didn't know they were taken, and
3. they were told they were going to a boarding school or a summer camp. I'm sorry, but "summer camp" and "orphanage" are not the same thing. :P
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