Village Care Development Foundation (VCDF Uganda) is addressing an Issue of Existence of Children on Streets and Orphanages, Since we believe that every Child Deserves a home.

VCDF Uganda has addressed this Concern through various ways as follows.

• Foster Care
• Kinship Care
• Transitional Care.
• Adoption.
• and many others

We assign a child to a given method after carrying out Family and Child assessment, Case study management to determine the best method that suits a given child.

We carry out this Activity under the supervision and guidance of Office of the Probation Officer and Community Development Officer Kagadi District, in order to ensure that all the Street and Abandoned Children are united with their families.

We train the family members where we are to place a child about issues like nutrition, child care, Child abuse, Education among others.

  Background

Despite the intention of orphanages to rescue orphans from extreme suffering, abuse and neglect of children in orphanages continue to manifest. Village Care Development Foundation (VCDF) is getting involved in overcoming this dilemma through a family reunification project. Children formally in our orphanage are slowly but surely reintegrated with their families. This has been done by converting our orphanage home into a transit home and education support to orphans and vulnerable children.

UNICEF estimates the number of children living in orphanages in Uganda to be about 2.7 million (Daily Monitor, May 16 2018). Deb, S., Sunny, A. M., & Majumdar, B. (2020) shows that a number of factors are responsible for being thrust into institutional care and they include poverty, broken homes and remarriage, irresponsible behavior of parents, parents’ dependence on substance, lack of support from extended family members during crisis, absence of parents on account of death, abandonment by parents and children in conflict with the law and so on. Being institutionalized also exposes these children to abuse maltreatment.

 This has been due to the increasing number of orphans in the orphanages, the use of untrained staffs in trauma management and limited resources to cover all the needs of children in orphanages.  

Bill (2018) noted that Survival Rights include; a child’s right to life and the needs that are most basic to existence, such as nutrition, shelter, an adequate standard of living, and access to medical services.

This prompted VCDF to setup a family reunification project to have children in orphanages reintegrated in their families. The project also promotes foster care to have children whose families cannot be traced resettled in a family setup. Through the programme activities, VCDF has setup a primary school which provides education services. The school is basically for orphans and vulnerable children and has no an orphanage care center. 

The project also is running a transit home as a prerequisite for the transition. VCDF is strategically situated in villages and has the best strategy that helps reach out to the grassroots in the villages. In the end the project will help orphans and vulnerable children in orphanages be morally upright and enjoy their survival rights. 

VCDF aims to ensure that everyone providing care for vulnerable children can access training and professional support that is accessible, adaptable and applicable to their own culture and context. They work closely with families to help them set up the possible way to allow them to provide care for the children.

The Problem:

• Millions of children live in orphanages
• Millions of children are abused and neglected
• Millions of children are being cared for by unqualified/untrained staff
• Lots of children’s home working with children cannot afford good quality training and support.

The Solution:

• VCDF gives knowledge on why children belong in safe families and not orphanages
• VCDF equips families with the skills to provide safe family care
• VCDF provides practical resources to support the new knowledge and skills.

The Dream:

• For every child around the world to have a safe family to belong to and be loved by
• And, for VCDF to be able to offer support to any families that asks for our help to make this possible.

Future Plans

• All Street or Abandoned Children should be attached to homes which may be their original Homes, Kinship care homes, Foster care homes or Adoption.
• Periodic training and Visitation of the homes where the Children were placed.