In the second of Beth Yorath's blogs from Romania, she becomes increasingly aware of a moral quandary associated with children's charities...

Little John’s House has a problem which has been creeping ever closer for some time, a problem that I'm hoping to solve -  what happens to the children we care for when they’re no longer children?

Most children’s charities have to face this predicament at some time; it is one thing to set up a children’s home and to keep it running but it’s something quite different when those children start to grow up.

Nowadays I look with different eyes when I see an advert for a children’s charity and realise I rarely see one for a similar adult’s charity. The reality is that they’re a lot harder to market. There must be many more out there but where are they? I need to find out.

Our charity specifically looks after children with some degree of disability who were initially in larger organisations, unable to cope with the specific requirements of each child. They have a range of both mental and physical conditions and for some it’s impossible to tell if they were born with the condition or it was brought on by years of malnourishment and being in an institution without the level of care they needed.

I have watched these children grow into fantastic characters, with most (evident) signs of their institutionalisation behind them. We are a small charity and only have 6 children at our home who have become brothers and sisters to one another – a real family group. I witness this as they sit around the table to dinner every night and laugh at each other if somebody does something silly, or argue over who gets to eat the last bit of the seconds on offer – just like any other family dinner table I can think of. At least three of them had never eaten solid food before coming to us, one of whom was 8 when he arrived.

Running out of time

If we were dealing with children who could eventually be trained to do a conventional job or to run a home for themselves, we would just be preparing them for the big wide world. Unfortunately, while our children are capable of an awful lot, being self-sufficient in any way is unlikely to be part of the future for most of them.

We have been lucky to date – some have already turned 18 and other solutions have been found for them; more distant family members have come forward, or they have been able to go and live with a caring family who is known to us and will provide them with some work etc. Our luck is running out fast now though and we face a future of potentially turning them back over to the state institutions unless we can find other solutions. Can we let that happen? It’s a difficult one to answer but I don’t think we can if there is any other way.

In line with this, I’m also looking at our outreach program whereby we offer respite care to others in the community who have a need. I still call them ‘the children’ but in reality, some of them are the same age as me – it’s about time they had something to call their own as adults.

So, the main question has to be: How do we scale this up to guarantee an even longer future? It has to be more sustainable than ever when you’re dealing with adults. All I do know at the moment is that we need to do everything possible to ensure that they can continue to live in a happy, loving, family environment for as long as is possible, I think that’s the only direction we can go in after all.

I guess it’s time for Little John’s House to grow up…


Beth Yorath is one of the eight 2010 Vodafone Foundation World of Difference International winners

(Applications for the World of Difference UK programme, delivered by the Vodafone Foundation, opened on Monday 11th October, offering 500 people across the UK the opportunity to work for their favourite charity for two months and be paid for their time. Applications close on the 23rd November. To find out more and to apply, visit www.vodafone.co.uk/worldofdifference.)