Kerin's Kids (Orphan-Care Ministry)
Kerin's Kids is a ministry dedicated to saving those children who are at great risk of dying in the fist two years of their lives. This is especially true for those children whose mothers have died in childbirth and whose families find it next to impossible to provide the necessary care for these children.
The goal of Kerin's Kids is assist and empower families to care for their own children. Kerin's Kids is NOT an orphanage. Although some children are giving temporary housing at Kerin's Kids Daybreak facilities, the ultimate objective is to find ways to assist the extended family so that they will be able to assume responsibilty these children.
There are three primary areas of assistance that Kerin's Kids provides:
(1) Baby Formula.
There are two types of families that need assistance in buying baby formula. The first are those families in which the mother has died in childbirth. Baby formula costs about $45 per month. Few families in Zambia have goats or cows and milk bought from the store is about as expensive as baby formula. Hence, when the mother dies in childbirth, families find themselves under great pressure to provide the necessary nutrition that a newborn requires. This is why many babies are buried with their mothers or abandoned in the bush.
The second situation involves those mothers who have HIV-AIDS. It is estimated that about one-in-four women of childbearing age in Zambia have HIV; and there is a one-in-four chance that a mother with HIV will pass on the virus to her child through breast-feeding. Unfortunately, most mothers with HIV cannot afford the baby formula for their newborns and, thus, many mothers have no choice but to risk passing the virus on to their children.
Kerin's Kids provides this baby formula for families (in which the mother has died in child-birth) and to mothers who have HIV-AIDS. This is a tempoary measure and allows the children to remain with their families.
(2) Temporary Housing.
There are some cases, however, in which the extended family is completely unable to care for a newborn. In some cases the exended family has either been wiped out by disease (e.g., HIV-AIDS) or already too overburdened with previously orphaned family members. In such cases where the family is unable to care for a newborn, Kerin Kid's is able to provide tempoary housing for the child at Daybreak in the Kerin's Kids Care Facility which has a capacity for up to 30 children (see picture below). This is, however, considered only a temporary solution as Kerin's Kids does not funcation as an orphanage providing long-term housing for orphans and vulnerable children. The goal is to work with the extended family so that the family will be able to assume full responsibility for the child within 2-3 years.
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(3) Special Needs.
Some children are born with special needs for which their families are unable to provide. In many cases the children are born weak, sick and in need of special medical care. In some cases the children are born with disabilities that need special attention. There are other situations in which the family encounters a sudden crisis that threatens the well-being of a newborn (e.g. father came home drunk and killed the mother). There are many ways in which Kerin's Kids has assisted such families in the past. In some cases she has been able to raise money to provide a much needed operation (e.g. operation to restore sight to a child). In other cases she has been able to provide special care (providing frequent visits to a doctor). And, in other cases, she has been able to provide temporary housing for the child until the family situation or crisis has been resolved.