A Village and Their Lost Children

Many communities in Africa view children as belonging to everyone, so the loss of family encompasses much more than just parents.

An African proverb states, “A child does not only belong to her or his parents.” In fact, in some African languages, there isn’t even a word for “orphan” because everybody assumes responsibility for the community’s children.

Traditionally, children who have lost their immediate guardians are brought into extended family’s homes and are cared for by uncles, aunts, or grandparents. The entire family and even neighbors play a vital role in raising and supporting these children, who are said to belong to the entire village. As Conrad Mbewe wrote for The Gospel Coalition, “Whereas to the Western mind, an orphan, having lost both father and mother, is destined to either be adopted or spend the rest of his or her childhood days in an orphanage, to an African mind, the child still has many fathers and mothers, and consequently many homes to live in. …My mother died when I was nine years old. A year later, her immediate elder sister came and got my two sisters and me, and educated us until we went to university.”

For children without this network of love and support, their situation is truly dire. In communities gripped by famine and severe poverty, the situation can be so appalling that even extended family members can’t afford to take on another child or even might be dead along with a child’s parents.

This starkly highlights the inextricable link between poverty and orphanhood in Africa.

There were approximately 52 million orphans in Africa in 2020, according to UNICEF. In the Sub-Saharan regions, around 20 percent of the population under 18 is considered orphaned and 43% of them live in extreme poverty.

Despite the cultural emphasis on family and community, children who have been orphaned by AIDS can still face exclusion and discrimination. Approximately 32% of orphans in this part of the world have had one or both parents die from AIDS. Many of these children suffer from the disease as well. Sadly, AIDS is not the only major epidemic that haunts vast regions of Africa. The rise of Ebola in West Africa is creating thousands more orphans, and fear as well as misunderstandings about the disease often ostracizes the survivors.

While all this does present a desperate need, there is hope.

Churches and communities in Africa are recognizing the challenges facing their next generation. Many are partnering with foreign teams like World Challenge to help orphans recover from health concerns like AIDS, continue their education, and reconnect whenever possible with extended family. Since 2001, in fact, the number of orphans across Africa has been slowly decreasing at about 0.7% per year.

Little bit by little bit, God’s people are helping to heal the wound of lost homes for Africa’s children.