Support for orphans through education and basic needs coverage
Program aimed at the orphans and orphans of Wukro and surroundings, in which they are provided with a safe home, education and coverage of their basic needs. The orphans share a home with each other and a person is in charge of supervising the correct coexistence, education, health and nutrition of the children.
How the innovative idea to care for orphans came about
Ángel Olaran came to Wukro in the early 1990s to open a secondary school. With all this, she realized very early that in addition to the School and the Mission, an orphanage was needed. One fact changed the perspective and they opted for an innovative system to welcome children without a father, or without a father or mother, who had nowhere to go.
But one fact changed the perspective: when 5 fatherless brothers also lost their mothers; a group of neighbors present themselves to the Mission saying that if they were economically possible, they would protect and take care of them. The offer was repeated several times by neighbors of orphaned children. Hence the happy idea of financially supporting these neighbors so that they could take responsibility for these children.
Alternative solution to the orphanage
A highly preferable solution to that of an orphanage, where relationships are necessarily more depersonalized. Some of these children started saying ‘father’ and ‘mother’ to their protectors, even after they had moved to another house. Others were actually adopted by families as their own children.
The big bet for this system consisted in that the siblings remained united, forming a family, and that the oldest or oldest (who could be 10 or 12 years old) acquired the responsibility of acting as the smallest father or mother: managing money, putting order in their lives … it worked (and still works) wonderfully, and that was the great joy. A group of women are in charge of monitoring 5 families each week: cleanliness, order, food, homework, etc .; and if the children cannot cook for themselves, another group of women prepares food for them.
All together they form a “family of families”
The number of families with orphaned children grew rapidly (and continues to grow) and it was already impossible for the Angel to be attentive to all of them; That is why he went to the administration of this network in the Wukro Social Development Program, which cares for orphans and gives them what they need. Today there are 12 women who take care of these families, and 12 cooks, in addition to the 5 social workers from the Office of Social Services. All together they form a ‘family of families’, with Ángel Olaran acting as father -or, now, of notices of hundreds of children; and not only individually, but also as a group.