Sarah Cramer's Fundraiser:

Half the Sky’s Family Villages provide the loving care of permanent families for children whose special needs leave them with little hope of being adopted and who have no alternative to living their childhoods inside welfare institutions. Local governments provide comfortable apartments on or adjacent to orphanage grounds to house newly formed families, each with a full-time mother,working dad, and four or five children, and Half the Sky provides training and support for the parents.

Parents sign on to raise their new charges to adulthood, enabling children who will never be adopted to grow up knowing the love of a family while also receiving the services that the institution and Half the Sky’s educational and enrichment programs provide. For these parents, the Villages provide the opportunity to raise a second family. Explains one Family Village father: “We have raised our son and we are very proud of him. But then, with no children in our home, I had a hole in my heart. My new children fill that hole.”

For the children, their new, loving families help fill a hole in their hearts that no institutionalized care, no matter how well-meaning and loving, can fill.