It is African Impact’s responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of children across the continent. As such, we have strict childcare policies and structured training programs in place to define and determine best practice, which involves and engages African Impact staff members at all levels of the organization.
Unfortunately, exploitative orphanages exist where the focus is on generating income from well-meaning volunteers, not the welfare of the children. It is for this reason that we took the decision to stop working with a number of orphanages across the continent and, as of 2018, no longer have any affiliation with this type of institution.
While African Impact, under no circ*mstances, supports the institutionalizing of children in orphanages, we do continue to work with orphaned children in reputable childcare organizations if the long-term aim of these institutions is to place children into a family setting. Our goal is to support vulnerable children across Africa and help them reach their full potential and our volunteer work will continue in foster-care homes, after-school centers and schools across the continent.
In order to do this effectively and ensure that our programming is beneficial for the children and partner organizations we support, African Impact always hires long-term staff (both international and local) across all of our volunteer projects and works hand-in-hand with local carers and teachers in a variety of facilities. Our volunteers are there to support and assist the local staff members, not replace them.
