This article from the Huffington Post was taken from a speech delivered by CEO of Lumos, Georgette Mulheir, in Bogotá, Colombia at the One Young World 2017 Summit in October. Mulheir describes her experience visiting her first orphanage in Bucharest, Romania and the suffering she witnessed. She explains the detrimental impacts of severe neglect that children experience in institutions and the need to redirect funds and resources to keeping children in families. Part of this work, says Mulhier, involves changing people's beliefs that orphanages provide a social good and contributing to them is an act of community service. She highlights the work of Lumos to end the institutionalization of children and the achievements made this year to that end, including the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Modern Slavery and its inclusion of orphanage trafficking.
