This post on the Missions Dilemma website features an article and 30 minute documentary film on the harmful impact of institutionalization on children. In the article, Dianne Becker, producer of the documentary film “A World Without Orphans,” describes learning about the ways in which orphanages “create” orphans. The documentary, and the article, are created for a Christian audience and ask viewers and readers to join the conversation and shift their paradigm regarding orphanage care.
In the article, Becker shares her journey to realizing the ways in which she may have done more harm than good in her mission work. “I’d worked in missions almost a decade and I had to face the fact that I had done a lot of things that were hurtful.” Becker explains how children are often placed into institutions, not because they have no living parents or family, but because “ we westerners mistakenly see poverty as neglect and lack of love. We want to help children by giving them a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear and an education,” she says “And then, parents hand their children over to be cared for. We create orphans.”
The 30 minute documentary video features interviews with several experts and members of the Christian faith community who are working to change the system and end the institutionalization of children. They highlight the many ways in which family-based care has been linked to the best outcomes for children and how their faith calls them to do this work.