History is filled with organizations trying to make a difference in the world. Some have been going for a very long time, others are more recent. On this blog, I will now occasionally be showcasing some of those that have been around awhile, and am going to start with one with which I have a personal twenty-five year association: the Canadian-based Families For Children. FFC is run by Sandra Simpson, who still administrates it from her own home and was, in 1984, awarded the Order of Canada for her work in Third World countries.
FFC itself started in 1972 and was initially an organization devoted to finding homes for war orphans coming out of Vietnam. By 1975, there was a FFC Baby Home in Dhaka, Bangladesh for orphaned and abandoned babies who could not, because of laws prohibiting it, be placed for foreign adoption. Other countries did permit foreign adoptions, and before long, some of the infants, toddlers, and older children in FFC Homes in India, Somalia, and El Salvador were finding homes in Canada, Britain, the United States, and other countries. Today there are only FFC Homes in India and Bangladesh, and while they still do facilitate adoptions, both in-country and abroad, most FFC children have families and are only cared for at the Homes because these families are not in a position to look after them. Serving both able-bodied children, and those with moderate to severe mental and physical disabilities, the FFC Homes feed, clothe, and educate the children in their charge and give them a supportive environment in which to flourish until such time as their parents can again look after them, or they are old enough to look after themselves.
FFC holds various fund-raisers to finance its projects, and has a sponsorship programme through which, for $12 a month, you can support individual children in the Homes. The children in the first two pictures above are the ones I currently sponsor, a brother and sister now aged seven and four. (Back in 1991, FFC also gave me one of my very own through international adoption, and he is my heart’s delight.)
Further information on Families For Children can be found at: http://www.familiesforchildren.ca/.
Time Travelling With Kids 