Improving Medical Care and Maternal Health

In many impoverished countries, a mother’s death significantly increases the probability that her children will die or become orphaned. In Ethiopia, we are having an impact on the lives of tens of thousands of mothers and children through better health care. We sponsor medical missions, whereby volunteer physicians and other medical professions travel about 4 times a year to perform life-saving surgeries and offer programs on maternal well-being during labor and delivery. In the north, we serve thousands of families through the Adwa Health Center. In addition, with the pending completion of the Leku Hospital in Sidama, we will be able to save lives and train local practitioners in procedures critical to better health and survival.

Supporting Children Through Sponsorship

Through child sponsorship, nearly 1,500 children from Ethiopia, Guatemala and India have been given the opportunity to attend school this year. Their families have been strengthened through better nutrition, economic counseling and attentiveness to health-related issues. Preserving families is the best way to provide security, hope and a brighter future for vulnerable children.

Consider Manisha Anthony. Manisha is an inquisitive 12-year-old from the Ganesh Murthi Nagar slum in Mumbai who carries the world on her shoulders. She lost her father some time ago and is coping with her mother’s failing health due to HIV and tuberculosis. Manisha’s family lived in a cramped, trash-strewn home. Prior to enrollment in the sponsorship program, they struggled with poor hygiene and health issues.

Social workers from our partner organization, Family Service Centre (FSC), stepped in to help Manisha’s mother find treatment and explore child care options. Nevertheless, her health continues to decline, and hospice care is inevitable. Thanks to our child sponsorship program, Manisha and her family do not have to face this challenge alone. FSC has helped locate an uncle willing to assist the family.

Testing encouraged by FSC has determined that Manisha also has TB and HIV. However, early detection has given her a fighting chance to live a long and fulfilling life.

Improving Living Conditions and Opportunity

Our roots as a humanitarian aid agency can be traced to the creation of a nutrition center to feed starving and abandoned children in war-torn Saigon in the early 1970s. Improving the quality of life for vulnerable children continues to be an essential part of our mission.

Our programs in Moldova and Colombia reflect this commitment. As the poorest country in Europe, Moldova struggles with high unemployment and persistent reports of human trafficking. Some children are forced to live in state-run institutions while their parents search for work abroad; others have lost one or both parents. Teenagers who “age out” of these institutions without meaningful job skills face a grim spectrum of possibilities – drug abuse, crime, kidnapping and sexual slavery. WHFC sponsors vocational training for these young adults. They are also taught the practical skills they need to live independently. Students are given jobs upon graduation and followed for several years to ensure their continued success.

Children come into orphanage care in Colombia because of extreme poverty, abuse and neglect. WHFC has been working with Chiquitines, our adoption partner in Colombia, for more than 30 years. Located in Cali, Chiquitines is a loving home for orphaned and abandoned children that provides protection, counseling and preschool and elementary education services. Medical care and counseling are also made available to children and mothers before and after the birth of their child. Approximately 75 children benefit from this holistic program.

Finding Permanent, Loving Homes for Children

We have helped place more than 12,000 children with loving families since 1974. In recent years, barriers to adoption imposed by virtually every country we work in have had a profound impact on our ability to find homes for orphaned and abandoned children. Nevertheless, we remain dedicated to doing what we can. In fact, we placed 338 children last year, more than one-third of whom were over 3 years of age, special needs children or sibling groups. These are the children most in need of homes! Despite the complexities that often accompany older child and special needs adoptions, our families are coming forward to meet the challenge. They share story after story of the boundless joy they have experienced living with these children.

Mai is one such child. Mai is missing part of his left arm due to the amniotic cord wrapping around his limb in utero. According to his mom, he is a typical 2-year-old boy in every way. Mai is mastering English and loves to play with trucks. She tells us with great pride that when he needs to hold more than one truck, Mai simply tucks one under his ‘nub’ and keeps on playing!

During a trip to Russia in September 2010, we checked in on Leo and Lucy, siblings who had been referred to a family and were waiting to travel. Leo seemed especially shy and apprehensive, and staff wondered whether he would have difficulty bonding to his “forever” family in the U.S.

The children were welcomed home three months later, in time to celebrate the holiday season.

In September of this year – 9 months after the children arrived in the U.S. – we were overjoyed to receive the photo to the right from their proud parents!

A child needs you! Help us continue to transform lives all over the world. Please make your donation to our Annual Appeal today.