'It is not fair for these innocent children to get lost'
That’s why Julius Arega, of Ngong in Kenya, is at the forefront of trying to stem so-called ‘voluntourism’. Where well-meaning people travel for short periods of time to help at orphanages like where Julius spent his formative years.
Far from helping, it is now clear that such volunteering can do a serious disservice to recipients of the ‘help’, most particularly when they are children.
Julius’s connection with Kilcullen is through the Maintain Hope charity founded by Gerry O’Donoghue to provide just that kind of help to the Ngong Children’s Home where Julius grew up. But the charity has now turned a hundred and eighty degrees and is aimed at stopping the need for children to be put into such orphanages.
On a recent visit to Ireland, Julius presented the Comhlamh Children First report to Deputies Niall Collins TD and Brendan Smith TD of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Dail Eireann, as part of raising awareness of the need to end volunteering to orphanages.
Julius received assurances from Deputy Collins that the issue will be discussed at Dail level, and he is hopeful that the report may also result in a Department of Foreign Affairs advisory notice that such volunteer visits are not recommended.
Julius was living with his grandmother when he was placed in the Ngong Children’s Home at the age of seven. One reason he was put there was that he was promised an education. Because Maintain Hope was supporting the home, he did get that, and subsequently went through third level. At the age of 30, he is today employed in a senior position with a security company.
Not all in orphanages are that lucky. “When I reached 17, I was given my notice to leave,” he recalled during his recent visit to Kilcullen. “I had the support of Maintain Hope, and was able to continue my education. But in most orphanages there’s no exit strategy. At 17, they are supposed to be independent. They are sent back to their communities. But they are strangers, with no ties to that community. They are likely to end up on the street.”
The irony is that seven in ten of those who may have spent a decade or more of their lives in an orphanage do actually have family members. But the system did not allow connection to them.
“When I was sent away, my grandmother was not allowed to visit me. So at 17 I didn’t have that connection, no relationship. I feel it is not fair for these innocent children to get lost when they go out in the world.”
Because of his own fortunate outcome, Julius has become a volunteer advocate to make changes in the system. It isn’t easy. Most orphanages in the country are run as businesses, where the needs of the youngsters are not primary. They get state funding and also support from NGOs and volunteers from other countries. They resist change.
Most orphanages were originally needed because of the HIV epidemics, when parents died and children were left on their own. That crisis has passed, thanks to improved medication and education. “But the number of orphanages is still increasing,” Julius notes.
Gerry O’Donoghue says that with the volunteers still coming, children are needed in orphanages to ‘feed the voluntourism’. The current focus of Maintain Hope’s involvement in Ngong is to support children to stay with their families and communities, and at the moment they are supporting some 48 who would otherwise be ‘orphans’. Extending this model through the country is the aim. To do so, Julius heads a local committee which works with the local authorities, including social welfare, to provide such support.
“The model we are following is totally in line with Kenyan laws and policies,” says Gerry O’Donoghue. “Kenya’s regulations are a beacon for the rest of Africa in how to deal with this problem. They just lack resources and the capacity to implement their own guidelines.”
Under those guidelines, any child put into an orphanage should only be there on a temporary basis. “With the help of social welfare, we identify families, guardians, parents, so that after three months a child put into a home can be sent back to their community,” Julius says. “Their guardians will be supported.”
Over the number of years that this policy has been developed, Julius says the difference it is making is clear. “You can now see the children having their attachments, their relationships. From my own experience I came to realise that a childhood is very important. If there are people taking care of a child while growing up, it is definitely a help later.”
Julius admits that his own experience, despite the good outcome, left him ‘traumatised’. “I’m now healing. When I got work I also got mentoring. And I want to help heal children in similar situations.”
For him, it’s a time of giving back to society for his own good fortune. That he didn’t end up ‘lost’ and on the streets. In addition to working as an advocate for change, he wants to be a role model for children in similar situations to where he was. “I want them to stop thinking as orphans. I want them to have, when they get their notice to leave at 17, a strategy. Our own strategy is to make this possible.”
Beyond that, he hopes eventually that the realisation will come internationally that voluntourism is no longer an acceptable way of helping. “We understand that the volunteers have good intentions. But it is now those people who are adding to the orphanages. At the end of the day, you may have good intentions, but what you are doing is causing more harm to the children.”
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