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Outreach Foundation project honored by United Nations
03395
September 19, 2003

Outreach Foundation project honored by United Nations

Nursery cares for orphaned and abandoned babies in Zambia

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE-A nursery that is funded by The Outreach Foundation to care for
abandoned infants and babies whose mothers have died of AIDS has been honored
by the United Nations as a "best practice project" in Africa.
Known as The House of Moses, the nursery is located in Lusaka, Zambia, and is
operated there by the Christian Alliance for Children in Zambia, an
inter-denominational organization.

The Outreach Foundation is a validated mission support group of the
Presbyterian Church (USA), located in Franklin, TN, with the care of
vulnerable children as a growing emphasis in its work.

Stephen Lewis, the United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa,
visited the nursery in early August with an international delegation from the
United Nations and USAID to congratulate the staff and to allow a film crew
to capture its work. The video will be used to help others develop similar
projects elsewhere.

Lewis was accompanied by Graca Machel Mandela, the wife of Nelson Mandela.

"One of the huge problems in sub-Saharan Africa is orphans ... caring for
kids who have no place to go and who've been exposed or abandoned," said the
Rev. Robert J. Weingartner, the director of The Outreach Foundation.

Weingartner said The House of Moses provides 24-hour immediate care for
premature and high-risk infants who gave been abandoned or whose mothers have
recently died. Local police, hospitals, clinic and the Department of Social
Welfare bring children to the nursery for care.

It is the only facility of its kind in Zambia, according to The Outreach
Foundation.

The nursery's protocol includes services such as providing formula and
diapers to destitute families and rooming-in space to teach young mothers how
to care for their premature babies.Women from nearby churches and close
neighborhoods volunteer to rock babies at the nursery and to assist the staff
in other ways.

The House of Moses is a joint venture of The Outreach Foundation and The
Alliance for Children Everywhere in Tucson, AZ, a Christian organization that
develops ministries to young children. The Foundation's role is to find
funding to support the work.

Weingartner said The House of Moses works to reconnect abandoned children
with their families, either by helping destitute parents care for their
children, or, if the child is orphaned, trying to arrange a placement with
the extended family or a family in the village where the baby was born.

Adoption is the third option.

Ebralie Mukarusagara, the foundation's projects coordinator, said that
HIV/AIDS is a humanitarian disaster in Africa that is rolling back decades of
economic and social development. "As far as HIV/AIDS is concerned, children
are the most vulnerable and yet they are the only hope for the future of the
African continent," she told the Presbyterian News Service.

The House of Moses has two sister facilities in Lusaka, the Kanyama Crisis
Nursery and the Bill and Bette Bryant Crisis Nursery.

More than 250 children have been placed in extended, foster and adoptive
families since the first facility opened in 1999.

The Outreach Foundation supports church-planting and construction, leadership
development and holistic evangelism around the world. Weingartner said that
the emphasis on children is an emerging one and that the foundation is
working jointly with PCUSA missionaries on projects with orphans in South
Africa and in Belarus. It is considering developing another nursery in
Malawi.

According to a report by the U.S. Agency for International Development, there
are expected to be 106 million orphans in the world by 2010, what it calls a
child-care crisis. More than 13 million children are already orphaned in
sub-Saharan Africa. As a nation, Zambia has one of the highest HIV-infection
rates.

(Visit http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/03395.htm to view the web version of this
story with pictures.)

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