Orphan Relief Programme

The orphan relief programme is Phase 1 of the three-phase Care for Kids process setting up an orphan and vulnerable children programmes in local churches. Its aim is to bring short-term relief to orphans by bridging the gap until the family is able to obtain alternate sources of support e.g. government grant.

Before Care for Kids can initiate the programme the church needs to have:

• Raised awareness within the church community around HIV/AIDS.
• Established an HIV+ support group.
• Identified orphans in need of care and support.

How do we set up an orphan relief programme in a church?

The key to the first phase is to set up, empower and equip the volunteers within the church to run the relief programme. The process involves:

• 1. Negotiating
• 2. Setting up and training a team volunteers
• 3. Strengthen the volunteer support base

1 - Negotiating

Care for Kids responds to requests from churches for assistance, which initiates a process of negotiating with the church leadership.  If the churches remains interested after being made aware of the programme, an assessment is carried out to determine the level of interest and current church involvement in orphan care. The results of the assessment are fed back to the church at a meeting and in a written report. If the leadership remains committed to setting up a programme, the leadership is required to extend a formal invitation to Care for Kids to partner the church.

2 - Setting up and training a team of volunteers

Care for Kids helps the church to set up a team of volunteers that is called an Orphan Action Team (OAT) and is involved in equipping and empowering the team to effectively run the orphan relief programme. The capacity building of the OAT is either conducted or co-ordinated by Care for Kids and includes:

• Understanding orphan issues
  We introduce and explore issues relating to orphans and vulnerable children internationally, nationally and, most importantly, locally. This gives the OAT a general foundation to builds on their existing knowledge of orphan care and support.

• How to set-up and manage an orphan relief programme
  This training focuses on providing specific skills and includes:

• How to assess a household that includes orphans.
• How to determine whether children are eligible for relief.
• How to make sure that the relief is getting to the children.
• How to know when to stop the relief.
• How to manage the relief distribution.

• How to help people access social grants
  Care for Kids equips the OAT members with an understanding of the government social grant system. This skill enables the volunteers to assess children's eligibility for the different grants and to advise the families accordingly. The volunteers are encouraged to not apply for the families, but to empower them to do it for themselves. This is a key principle of the programme.

• How to raise awareness and mobilise the church
  The orphan relief programme relies heavily on the active support and commitment of church members. As the programme develops, the church may sense God calling it to move on to the comprehensive programme (Phase 2). At this stage it will need more people to share the load. Care for Kids therefore trains the OAT to explore ways of raising awareness in the church and to mobilise more volunteers to support and care for orphans and their carers.

• How to plan ahead
  We encourage churches to develop their programmes to the point where they are no longer dependent on Care for Kids. (Independence is Phase 3 of the programme.) This requires careful planning and the focus of the training at this stage is to equip the OAT with strategic plans so that the programme remains sustainable in the long term.

3 - Strengthening the volunteer support base

The OAT is rooted in the local church and community, and cannot bear fruit without strong links to the support base within the church.  In particular, Care for Kids enables and encourages the OAT to:

• Raise awareness and mobilise the church to respond to the varied needs of orphans and vulnerable children.
• Mobilise and encourage prayer and intercession in the church for the Care for Kids orphan relief programme.
• Work closely with the HIV+ support group. The two groups have different roles to play, but both are important. A strong link between them is critical for effective work in areas of overlapping interest, such as succession planning for children who are at risk of being orphaned.

Where to from here?

Once an orphan relief programme has been running for at least 6 months, Care for Kids will:

• Partner with the OAT to assess the programme.
• Partner with the OAT to assess whether it is ready to move on to the comprehensive programme (Phase 2).
• Discuss the outcome of the assessment with the church leadership and the OAT.
• Together with the OAT and the church leadership, prayerfully discern whether God is calling the church to:
     -  start the comprehensive programme, or
  continue with the relief programme only.
• Facilitate the transition to the comprehensive programme, if all parties concerned agree on this decision.

What churches are already running Phase 1?

There are currently 2 churches in Cape Town running a Care for Kids orphan relief programme.  More are in the negotiation, assessment and training stages, so watch this space!

The following churches already have orphan relief programmes:

• Holy Cross- Nyanga.
• St Columba - Gugulethu.

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