5 Million Minus 1

Adoption Awareness Month....

November is adoption awareness month.  It is a busy month for me at my job but I want to take this month to focus on important aspects of adoption and orphan care.  With each blog post, I hope to talk about issues important to me, highlight families and people acting for orphans, and encouraging others to do something for orphans.  I also hope to incorporate posts of what I am thankful for in order to remind myself of the blessing granted to me....for it is the month of thanksgiving.....a direct irony of orphan awareness month and yet the two work so well together. 

For today, I will start with stats.  I found these on a website focused on orphan care.  The numbers vary from source to source but are basically the same and make the same point.....  Try to swallow the numbers....it is not easy. The question I ask myself and you.... Where do we go from here?

From www.hfgf.org: (pretty consistent with other research)...includes USA foster care system
~Every DAY 5,760 more children become orphans
~Every YEAR 2,102,400 more children become orphans (in Africa alone)
~143,000,0002 Orphans in the world today spend an average of 10 years in an orphanage or foster home
~Approximately 250,000 children are adopted annually, but…
~Every YEAR 14,050,000 children still grow up as orphans and AGE OUT of the system
~Every DAY 38,493 children AGE OUT
~Every 2.2 SECONDS, another orphan child AGES OUT with no family to belong to and no place to call home
~In Ukraine and Russia 10% -15% of children who age out of an orphanage commit suicide before age 18.
60% of the girls are lured into prostitution. 70% of the boys become hardened criminals. Many of these children accept job offers that ultimately result in their being sold as slaves. Millions of girls
are sex slaves today, simply because they were unfortunate enough to grow up as orphans.

****Thankfulness:  Today I am thankful for an afternoon with my son while studying and explaining to him logistics of the childhood movies...I am thankful for the little moments at home between work and life.