Dr. Jane Aronson, founder of the Worldwide Orphans Foundation, speaks about the dilemma of how best to help Haitian orphans in the New York Times:
“This is not a time for adopting orphan children in droves,” she says. Instead, the answer is “to care for the children where they are, and allow them to find their aunts, their uncles, their grandparents, their cousins.”
She proposes “conscripting an army of grannies” — Haitian women who can be given stipends to foster one or two children at a time. It would be a worthy use of the money pouring into the country from around the world, she says, and her organization is in the process of recruiting American social workers to head to Haiti to build such a project quickly.
Also, see this helpful fact sheet from the International Reference Centre for the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family (ISS/IRC).
