Historically, an orphanage is a residential institution, or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and other children who were separated from their biological families. Examples of what would cause a child to be placed in orphanages are when the parents were deceased, the biological family was abusive to the child, there was substance abuse or mental illness in the biological home that was detrimental to the child, or the parents had to leave to work elsewhere and were unable or unwilling to take the child. The role of legal responsibility for the support of children whose parent(s) have died or are otherwise unable to provide care differs internationally.
SOS Children's Villages is an independent, non-governmental, nonprofit international development organization headquartered in Innsbruck, Austria. The organization provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to children in need and protects their interests and rights around the world. The first SOS Children's Village was founded in 1949 in Tyrol, Austria by an Austrian philanthropist Hermann Gmeiner after the realization that the world war had left many children orphaned and neglected. Today, SOS Children's Villages is active in 135 countries and territories worldwide
Operation Babylift was the name given to the mass evacuation of children from South Vietnam to the United States and other countries at the end of the Vietnam War, on April 3–26, 1975. By the final American flight out of South Vietnam, over 3,300 infants and children had been evacuated, although the actual number has been variously reported. Along with Operation New Life, over 110,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. Thousands of children were airlifted from Vietnam and adopted by families around the world.
Operation Smile is a nonprofit medical service organization founded in 1982 by Dr. William P. Magee, Jr. and his wife Kathy Magee. It is headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Feed the Children, established in 1979 and headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is a non-profit organization focused on alleviating childhood hunger. Their mission is "providing hope and resources for those without life's essentials." It provides food, essentials, education supplies and disaster relief to those in need across the United States and in 10 countries around the world. Domestically, it operates five distribution centers located in Oklahoma, Indiana, California, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.
acet UK is a Christian charity with a mission to equip and inspire individuals, schools, churches and organisations, in the UK and internationally, to transform culture by promoting healthy self-esteem, positive relationships and good sexual health.
The Third Order of Saint Francis, is a third order in the Franciscan order. The preaching of Francis of Assisi, as well as his example, exercised such an attraction on people that many married men and women wanted to join the First Order (friars) or the Second Order (nuns), but this being incompatible with their state of life, Francis found a middle way and in 1221 gave them a rule according to the Franciscan charism. Those following this rule became members of the Franciscan Third Order, sometimes called tertiaries. It includes religious congregations of men and women, known as Third Order Regulars; and fraternities of men and women, Third Order Seculars. The latter do not wear a religious habit, take vows, or live in community. However, they do gather together in community on a regular basis. "They make profession to live out the Gospel life and commit themselves to that living out the Gospel according to the example of Francis."
Children of the Nations (COTN) is a Christian nonprofit organization that exists to provide care for orphaned and destitute children in poverty-stricken areas of the world. Operating in Malawi, Sierra Leone, the Dominican Republic, Uganda, and Haiti, COTN helps nearly 7,000 children on a daily basis. COTN's stated goal is to "Raise children who transform nations."
Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW) is a charitable organization created to house and educate orphans and abandoned children. In response to the crisis facing orphaned children around the world, former investment bank employee Jim Luce founded Orphans International in 1999. OI's headquarters are in New York City.
FXB International, also known as Association François-Xavier Bagnoud, is an international development organization aimed at providing support for communities affected by AIDS and poverty. The organization was founded in 1989 by Albina du Boisrouvray.
Formed in 2004, Global Action for Children (GAC) was a coalition dedicated to improving the lives of orphans and highly vulnerable children in the developing world.
Starfish Greathearts Foundation is an international non-governmental organisation formed in response to the tragedy of children orphaned or left vulnerable by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa. Its mission is to help make a difference to the lives of these children through community-based organisations working at grassroots level. This enables individual communities to develop their own solutions to the challenges they face. As of January 2009, Starfish projects reach more than 36,000 children in 120 communities across South Africa.
The Uganda AIDS Orphan Children Foundation (UAOCF) is a non-profit charity that helps vulnerable children and those orphaned by AIDS in Uganda. UAOCF received 501 (c) (3) charity status in 2003; subsequently, the Internal Revenue Service granted permanent public charity status in 2006. The foundation's mission is to provide support to orphans in foster homes and to support Hope House, the Kabale Diocese residential facility/technical school for orphans. As of April 2009, UAOCF supports over 50 children at Hope House and over 350 all together.
The Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) is an American non-partisan, non-profit organization "dedicated to raising awareness about the tens of thousands of orphans and foster children in the United States and the millions of orphans around the world in need of permanent, safe, and loving homes through adoption; and to eliminating the barriers that hinder these children from realizing their basic right of a family." CCAI seeks to educate and inform Members of Congress in adoption, foster care, and child welfare issues that affect their constituents. This is done through congressional briefings, leadership training programs, educational trips, and other notable programs. The Institute's work is entirely funded by donations and gifts from organizations and individuals like the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The American Foundation for Children with AIDS (AFCA) is a non-profit organization that helps children in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as their guardians, who are HIV positive or who have contracted AIDS and lack access to appropriate medical care. Sub-Saharan Africa has been most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, given that of all new HIV infections in the world, those in sub-Saharan Africa account for more than two-thirds of that number, as of 2008. In helping to fight the battle against HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, AFCA provides critical antiretroviral medicine and other related medications, medical equipment and supplies, sustainable food solutions for families and institutions helping orphans, emergency supplies needed by the institutions in AFCA's targeted areas, as well as critical support for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, which included training of personnel. Currently, AFCA collaborates with twenty-eight partners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Malawi,Uganda, and Zimbabwe.
Distressed Children & Infants International (DCI) is a U.S.-based non-profit organization established at Yale University in 2003 and currently headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Watsi is a nonprofit healthcare crowdsourcing platform that enables individual donors to directly fund medical care for individuals in developing countries without access to affordable medical care.
Eric Winston Ludy is an author, speaker and president of Ellerslie Mission Society. He is also the senior pastor at the Church at Ellerslie and the lead instructor at Ellerslie Leadership Training in Windsor, Colorado. Ludy is the author of more than a dozen books, many of which were co-authored by his wife, Leslie Ludy.
Mending Kids is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that provides surgeries to children across the world while training local medical communities to become self-sustaining. It brings surgical mission teams of doctors, nurses and volunteers who donate their time and services to travel to developing countries to perform procedures that range from pediatric open-heart, neuro, ENT, orthopedic or general surgeries on impoverished or orphaned children while establishing sustainable teaching programs. Since 2006, it has helped thousands of children in 54 countries around the world, including the United States. The organization currently operates in Burbank, California.
Mission Community Church is an American, Non-Denominational, church located in Gilbert, Arizona that is well known for its extensive collaborations with various faith-based non-profit organizations in areas such as: sex trafficking rescue and rehabilitation, clean water and community building in Africa, and supporting local Arizona families suffering homelessness and hardship.
