We have been working in Vietnam for over 20 years with the orphans and abandoned children. We provide them with shelter, food, and an education.
Orphans are the world’s forgotten children. They live in an anonymity—feared state, stigmatized, avoided, voiceless and invisible. But orphans, like all children, yearn for love and dream of bright futures for themselves. More than 153 million children in the world have lost one or both parents. Many, through no fault of their own, are destined to live out their childhoods in institutional settings or on the street, devoid of loving caregivers, sick and hungry, without dreams and without purpose.
Spread Aloha To The World is working to ensure that orphaned and at-risk children have a happy, healthy childhood, in spite of their circumstances. By providing boys and girls with love, play, education, healthcare and hope, we give them what every child needs… a chance.
A child loses one month of developmental skills for every three months spent in an orphanage. By the time a child turns three, they are often a full year behind in development, and the disadvantages start to accumulate, including learning disabilities, ADHD, auditory processing disorder and attachment issues. WWO delivers programs to address the needs of the whole child, giving them strong bodies and social and life coping skills they need to be happy and independent in the future.
PROTECTION: Our first and most immediate goal is to provide safety and protection to orphaned and at-risk children, adhering to the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
INTIMACY: We nurture children with the love and attention that is every child’s birthright. All programs include training for caregivers and staff on early childhood development. Our One-to-One program recruits adults from the community to pair up with individual children and play with them every day so that they can know what it means to be attached to a loving caregiver.
PLAY: We encourage creativity, healthy competition, team work and self-expression through camp, global arts and sports. Our toy libraries enhance cognitive development through joyful play and experimentation.
HEALTH CARE: Children who are sick can’t learn, grow and thrive. Our care for orphans, including those living with HIV/AIDS, is based on attention to the whole child. HIV/AIDS, special needs, developmental delays – whatever the issue, we address it.
HOPE: Without an education, children are destined to repeat the cycle of poverty. Orphans, who age out of institutions by 16 without a proper education, are condemned to a life on the streets; of begging, prostitution, human trafficking, early marriage and criminality. We work to provide at-risk children with a first-rate education so they can reach their potential.
PREVENTING FURTHER ORPHANS: Many families living in extreme poverty believe that their children will have a better life in an orphanage, but that is rarely the case. Spread Aloha To The World works with families at risk of abandoning their children to give them the skills and confidence they need to keep their children at home. Where abandonment has already occurred, we use a social work case management approach to reconnect and, where possible, reintegrate children with their families.