| Typical institutional orphanage versus typical WORLD ORPHANS home. |
Typical Institutional
Orphanage |
Typical WORLD ORPHANS Church-based Home |
|
Type |
Orphanage |
Home |
Location |
Outside of communities on government-donated land |
Within communities on church land |
Infrastructure |
Isolated stand-alone campus |
Integrated home on the property of the church |
Societal integration |
Children are removed and separated from their community of origin |
Children are fully integrated into their community of origin. They play and attend school and church with their neighborhood peers. |
Number of children |
200 to 1,000 |
8 to 12 (per home), or for example 40 children in 4 homes. |
Caregiver ratio (number of caregivers per child) |
Very low to Low |
High to Very high |
Caregiver status |
Paid staff working in shifts |
Live-in families and widows complemented by church volunteers |
Abuse and neglect potential |
Medium to High |
Low |
Access to the Gospel |
Low to Medium |
High |
Potential for domestic adoption |
Low (children are isolated and removed from families that might be influenced to adopt them) |
High (children are constantly seen by church families that might be moved to adopt them) |
Physical and mental development |
Poor (Below average comparatively) |
High (Above average comparatively. Children have high access to education, whereas general community children may have low access ) |
Transition/Reintegration back into society |
Poor (dependency, lack of integration, few employment opportunities) |
N/A (no ‘transition’ or ‘reintegration’ because they never left their communities in the first place and have church members for employment potential and referral) |
Opportunity to be reunited with extended family that comes searching for them |
Low (children are removed and separated from their community of origin and are therefore hard to find by seeking extended family members) |
High (children remain in their community of origin and can therefore be more easily found by extended family that have traveled to find them) |
Construction style and standard |
Excessive (out of place with community living standards) |
Normal (equivalent to ‘middle class’ living standards) |
Construction cost |
High (need to purchase utility infrastructure; typically built to excessive standard) |
Low (built on property already owned by the church; already has utility access; church volunteers assist with construction labor) |
Love and care |
Low to medium (paid staff doing ‘jobs’) |
High (church families doing ‘ministry’) |
Accountability |
Low to medium (no other stakeholders continually viewing the work) |
High (church board and church members continually viewing the work; denominational hierarchies as added accountability) |
Prayer for the children |
Low |
High (individually and collectively) |
