What is a "Granny Family?"
In America the “family” has been fractured by substance abuse and divorce leaving many children in foster care and many more living with relatives or Grandparents in Kinship care.
In Uganda the “family” has been fractured by the AIDS epidemic, fueled by poverty, which has wiped out a generation of mom’s and dad’s to care for their own children.
So, What is a Child to Do?
- Every 15 SECONDS, another child becomes an AIDS orphan in Africa.
- Every DAY 5,760 more children become orphans.
- Every YEAR 2,102,400 more children become orphans (in Africa alone).
- 143,000,000 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.
EVERY 15 SECONDS
another child is orphaned by AIDS in Africa
Almost 90% of the 16.6 million children orphaned by AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa
- 3600 Children become AIDS orphans every day.
- Uganda is the epi-center of HIV/ AIDS that has left 1 of 5 children fully orphaned.
- The traditional response of the children in the wake of the death of their parents, is to live with their grandmother (Jja Jja: Lugandan) who, after no grieving period following the death of her husband and then her own children, opens her small mud hut to 1–3 or 6–14 orphaned grandchildren or great grandchildren to keep them from being completely abandoned.
So, in short, a Granny-Family is the family God created to give permanency & security, a home, to these parent-less children.
It is the best solution for an orphan because it is God’s idea!
Man created orphanages for Children, but God created family for children!