Solidarity

SOLIDARITY

Kenya, less distance suppport from Italy

It's time to help families and follow certain programs

27-06-2019 by Freddie del Curatolo

In Kenya, it is no longer the time for "remote" support, let alone for what are improperly called "adoptions".
There are many causes that have led to the vertical decline of this form of solidarity towards what, among the many African countries with situations of extreme poverty, is one of the most visited by Italians.
The economic crisis in Europe and Italy in particular, which brings uncertainty about the future, certainly does not help, just as the problem of immigration has not been adequately addressed in the now famous slogan "let's help them at home".
The data that we receive from the many non-profit organizations that operate on the territory, speak clearly: people of heart still exist, but rather than the simple help in growing up a boy, the fondness for a "child of Africa", you are attracted by occasional campaigns or health emergencies, or you prefer to make general donations, without focusing on a single child, with the risk of not being able to carry out the support over time.
But there is also a positive evolution of solidarity: for some time now, those who want to help infants and children have been doing so in the presence of programs that combine simple support for long-term objectives (education, integration into the world of work or simply reintegration into the family) and are aimed at organizations that embrace this philosophy, in line with the new directives of the African country on child care.
Times and changes aside, we at malindikenya.net have never really liked the term "long-distance adoption", and we have been supporting it in these areas for years.
Adoption, by definition, should be aimed at a child without parents or in final custody to social services.
In Kenya we know well that there have always been few real orphanages, recently there has also been a reform of the "children's centers" that have been transformed into family homes where the goal is to aim at the return of disadvantaged children in the family. 
At one time the concept of "distance adoption" indicated the act of solidarity through a periodic economic contribution with which the Onlus provided for the subsistence, school fees and health care of a child. But even in that case, adoption in that sense was a word used improperly, not having legal, social and emotional value.
In this case we can speak of "distance support", but here too something is changing in Kenya, in the sense that we are aligning ourselves with what are international directives. Directives that aim to promote the family and the right of minors to live within a family nucleus, favouring alternative formulas defined as "alternative family care", among which we can cite assistance to family members, foster care, up to custody or adoption (in the legal sense), only as the last possible solution, which is not easy to obtain in Kenya.
"Karibuni Onlus has also found a decrease of about 30% in the last 3 years of distance support - explains the President of the NGO, Gianfranco Ranieri - For us the causes are many. A generalized drop in the economy and for many people the amount required (on average 300/400 euros per year) becomes significant if you have lost your job for example.  Then people do not like to have a long-term commitment, even if many specify that it is not a fixed obligation. Then here too there are many situations that are unclear and not very transparent, all over the world.  And like so many things, there are evolutions and innovations".
What can be the most effective alternative ways of helping children in Kenya?
We also talk about it with Mariangela Alterini, President of Watoto Kenya Onlus.
"Our association follows the international objectives of social development and has put them into practice in Kenya since 2017, through a choice of radical change in our project, at least a year before then these insights on assistance were transposed by the political directives of this country - says Alterini - We proposed to the community and territory of reference, Makobeni, the closure of the orphanage that we had opened in 2005, its conversion to socially useful use in favor of the community itself (boarding school) and the activation of our own program of assistance for children in the family. Never would we have expected such a favourable reaction and approval, first of all from the local stakeholders involved (families, village communities, teachers and children), and then from the institutional ones.  After a year, we could therefore also certify the qualitative and quantitative results that led us to be invited to the International Conference on the Rights of the Child (ICP - International Child Protection Conference in Nairobi in August 2018) precisely to present this best practice to an international audience in the Horn of Africa. 

TAGS: sociale kenyasolidarietà kenya

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