Widows & Orphans Program
"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: To visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."
(James 1:27)
"A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation."
(Psalms 8:5)
Many widows in Africa are stigmatized and subjected to customary wife-inheritance practices by various communities. In most cases, they are abandoned by their in-laws and robbed of their inheritance and whatever the husband owned. As a result, many suffer in silence. Likewise, orphans are often abandoned and mistreated – resulting in them developing anti-social tendencies as they mature due to the psychological trauma.
Thus, the Widows & Orphans Program is meant to help assuage the suffering of both the urban and rural poor widows and orphans through support systems that are tailored to carter not only for their material support, but also for their psychological and emotional well-being. These include social forums for the widows to help them cope with loss and grief and economic empowerment for their self-reliance.
The support systems will also include assistance to orphanages and children’s homes across the country, mainly by the provision of food, clothing and other material needs.
The shock of widowhood entails a loss of economic means that are conditional on marriage, including access to productive assets (such as land), as well as the loss of protection and status previously derived from a husband.
Widows are most affected in places where there’s an intersection of poverty, remoteness, and culture and tradition being misinterpreted. That results in multiple discriminations against women. All over the world, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, widows are the invisible people. For many women, the loss of a husband is only the starting point; the first of many traumas.
The country facing a large-scale orphan crisis in the Caribbean and Latin America is Haiti, particularly in light of the devastating earthquake that happened in January 2010. Nevertheless, there are a significant number of orphans in the region.