WE FIGHT FOR FAMILIES
At myLIFEspeaks, we believe in bringing and keeping families together.
Did you know that 80% of children living in Haitian orphanages are NOT actually orphans? (Reuters 2018) Most children in Haiti’s orphanages have been relinquished out of desperation and poverty to a system that uses them for profit.
Haiti doesn't have an orphan crisis; Haiti has an orphanage crisis.
According to a 2018 report by Lumos, “An estimated 30,000 children live in approximately 750 mostly privately-run and financed orphanages in Haiti.” The biggest benefactors of these Haitian orphanages are well-meaning Christians and churches in North America.
In a country where children are placed in orphanages because families can’t afford to raise them, we see our calling as working with these families to offer services that allow children to stay with their biological families. Our goal is to address the issue at the source, by providing programs and resources that encourage mothers and fathers to feel empowered and equipped to raise their children in their homes as a family.
At myLIFEspeaks, we fight for families through Family Empowerment, Education, and Public Health programming. Our Family Empowerment programming provides crucial services and resources like quality and affordable healthcare, low-cost therapies, feeding and nutritional programs, Christian discipleship, family-based care for children, employment opportunities, commUNITY support, and much more.
By helping stand in the nutritional, physical, and spiritual gap for families, parents won't consider, out of desperation and poverty, relinquishing their child to an orphanage.
Family is at the center of what we do. By empowering children and parents, you empower a community. By empowering a community, you empower a village. By empowering a village, you can empower an entire country.
We believe that Haiti can be transformed into a nation centered on Christ that respects and values the dignity of every LIFE. This starts with strong families.
myLIFEspeaks' Family-Based Care Model
We believe that children belong in families, not institutions or orphanages. This is why we have a family-based approach to orphan care, which means we place children who have truly been orphaned or abandoned in Haiti, typically developing and special needs, in loving forever family homes.
myLIFEspeaks is not an orphanage. In a country that lacks proper infrastructure for orphaned and abandoned children, we’ve created what would be comparable to the US Foster Care System with Haitian Family Homes supported financially, physically, and spiritually by myLIFEspeaks.
These families go through extensive screening and training and receive constant support from our Family Empowerment Directors and Social Workers on-ground. These are specific Christian Haitian families in our local community who have permanently opened their homes and hearts to children in need.
The myLIFEspeaks model of family-based care is intended to provide a nurturing, supportive, and inclusive environment for children and families. Family Home parents and caregivers are trained and supported, working as a team with social workers, teachers, nannies, medical care providers, therapists and other support staff at myLIFEspeaks. The special needs and typically developing children live fully integrated within their communities attending church, school, and social functions as any family would.
Currently, we have 6 Family Homes and 27 children supported physically, spiritually, and financially by myLIFEspeaks. We have seen tremendous success and lives transformed for both the children and their parents through this family-based care model. You can read more about the families, here.
Unlike orphanages, you don’t age out of a family. Families are forever.
This #GivingTuesday, every dollar we raise goes directly to myLIFEspeaks' initiative to FIGHT FOR FAMILIES by:
providing family-based care for orphaned and abandoned children in Haiti, many with special needs.
In-Home Nutritional Assistance, programming to ensure impoverished parents can still feed their children and encourage families to break bread together in their homes.
Affordable medical care and therapies, quality Christ-Centered education, and parent support groups
