Rwanda closing orphanages, children fearful

Rawanda is planning to close its many orphanages, and will start by sending older children to live with the families who rejected them, or strangers. Many criticize the move as a mistake and children are fearful. 

KIGALI, RAWANDA (Catholic Online) - Claiming that orphanages are no longer needed in Africa's most populous country, government officials have announced their intention to close them. Government officials insist the children will be placed with the safest families, many, especially the children fear otherwise. 

When children at the Noel Orphanage, the country's largest and oldest, were told of the plan to send them away, they reacted with shock and fear. Many children were mere infants when their parents were slaughtered in one of the worst human atrocities of the 1990s, the ethnic conflict between Tutsis and Hutus that left an estimated 500,000 dead. And while most of the children of that generation are now grown, the babies who survived are still in orphanages where they have access to food, clothing, and education. 

Sending the children away could change that. Some children expressed dismay at officials who came to deliver the news to them. While some may very well be placed with loving families, many fear they will be treated as servants instead of as children. Other children are afraid of violence. For some, their parents abandoned them as babies and if they return, they may be sent away again, or even attacked. In Rwanda, land is scarce and precious and sibling rivalries can be intense or even deadly. 

For other children, the fear is of not being allowed to finish school. With opportunities as scarce as land, an education can make a tremendous difference for orphaned children who have no other hope of prosperity. 

Many outsiders criticize the plan as well. Several charitable and international aid organizations pay to support the orphanages. Critics of the plan fear if the closures start, charities will stop supporting the orphanages, and since the plan is meant to be a gradual one, it could cut support for a vital social program while it is still needed. 

Still, official are clinging to optimism and assuring worried kids and others that the program will be careful, compassionate, and successful. Fortunately, the government has not set a deadline for itself and the closure may not start for some time to come, allowing many kids the opportunity to finish school before being sent into the world, alone.

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