ORPHANAGES


FACE for Children in Need is a Belgian non-for-profit association which has been operating in Egypt since 2003.

Since its inception, FACE has intervened on the renovation of orphanages but also worked on recruitment, training and motivation of the staff.

The goal is to ensure they can take care of children in a decent way and that a daily educational programme can be started to ensure social, physical and psychological development of the child.

In 2003, FACE renovated and restructured the orphanage of Zeitoun (80 children from 0 to 18 years) as well as the centre for abandoned babies of Hegazy (120 babies/year from 0 to 2 years => 580 children since 2004), where FACE took over the management with the support of the Ministry of Health.

The number of babies increases year on year. The Egyptian Government is aware of the scale of the phenomenon but has not succeeded in stopping it.  No structure is currently capable of taking on the problem in the present demographic context.

That is why in September 2007, FACE opened the orphanage of Maadi to take care of abandoned babies between 0 and 2 years.  The orphanage now counts 44 babies.

As of mid 2009, FACE will start to renovate a new orphanage in Benha.  For this project FACE will take over and manage this centre with the support of the Ministry of Social Affairs.  It will be dedicated to children between 2 and 6 years who come from the orphanages of Hegazy and Maadi in order to ensure the continuity of care but also their stability and safety. This will allow children to grow up together and evolve with the same paediatric nurse and system of care they have received since their babyhood. The orphanage will also welcome orphans from the slum of Benha.



THE CENTRE FOR STREET CHILDREN: EL SALAM

In April 2007, FACE was contacted by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) to launch a large project for  street children in Cairo.

This center opened its doors in January 2009 after over a year of intensive field work (outreach on the streets) conducted by the FACE team.  The objective was to first build strong contact with children living and working on the streets of Cairo, in order to gradually establish a relationship based on trust.  FACE used non-intrusive methods of trustbuilding to build relationships with children in over 20 areas of Cairo.

It was with the help of their partner organisation, Friends International, that FACE embarked on the journey of helping change the lives of children on the streets.  Through 18 months of outreach, FACE staff made contact with children mainly during night hours, offering them non-formal education, medical care, life skills, but above all friendship.  This laid the foundations of the Drop-In Center which was opened in September 09 to receive children referred from the outreach street work, to provide them with more formal activities in a center they could deem their own.

One of the top priorities for FACE is to try and reintegrate a child within his/her family.  FACE tries to support children wishing to return to their families as we believe that a family is the optimum environment for a child's development.

Salam project is now in the process of preparing to open the Residential Shelter.  This includes offering services to the children such as a Child Friendly School (full-time education), Vocational Training (both in-house and outsourced), Home Based Production (giving skills to mothers wishing to take their children off the streets and put them back into school), Drug Detoxification and Rehabilitation, Familial Reintegration and medical services.


THE « CHILD & MOTHER SUPPORT CENTRE »

 

Foreseen to be a reality in 2010, the construction of the «Child & Mother Support Centre» in Ghoussous aims at helping mothers and children of this large slum of 2.000.000 people in the north of Cairo. It will include:

  • A clinic for children
  • A temporary help unit for mothers and children in dire need (emergency accommodations and staff, with the objective of prevention of abandonment)
  • A day-care centre and a nursery school with 4 classrooms in order to allow mothers (often very young) to find work and manage to get out of poverty.
  • A training initiative teaching mothers hygiene and care as well as a training programme to help them reintegrate in the professional workforce: computer skills, sewing, cooking, crafts, etc.

 

 KAFALA ("Adoption")

 

Egyptian law strictly forbids adopting, i.e. giving the adopted child the name of its adoptive parents.  Only a system called the « Kafala » is authorised in Egypt.  In this system, any person of Egyptian nationality may adopt an orphan provided that he/she will not give his/her name, the child must keep the name received at the orphanage.

FACE has recently embarked on a detailed investigation of the system of the «Kafala» in Egypt with the approval of the Ministry of Social Affairs (contract signed on 3 June 2009, see Annex 4) to identify incompatibilities between the law and what actually happens in the field and in order to propose very practical solutions.

It is a very sensitive subject in Egypt. It is a proof of trust from the Egyptian Government to accept that FACE, a foreign non-profit association , can start conducting a study on this subject. This  has never happened  in Egypt thus far. As a result of this study, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood  (NCCM) expressed their intention to possibly change laws of the Kafala should it be necessary.