Three Years Of Reunifying Families
On this week, three years ago, we drove to the Honduran child protective services office in San Pedro Sula to put into practice something we had dozens of meetings discussing and designing. We wanted to support the process of kids getting back to their families from orphanages, so when the child protective services asked us to start by helping transport their professionals to do the home studies of the biological families in the process of trying to get their kids back home, we showed up with a full tank of gas ready to go.
That first day, we met a grandma who wanted to take in her granddaughter, who had been placed in an orphanage after being abused. The conditions of her humble home, built of recycled sheet metal, and lack of running water and electricity stood in the way of her granddaughter returning home.
The second family we visited lived in temporary housing because their home was damaged from severe flooding just months before when their young son was separated from the family one evening in the confusion, and he was then placed in an orphanage.
That day, we began to hear firsthand some of the reasons why kids were separated from their families, and we heard directly from families their desire to get their kids back home. We also started to see for ourselves what the limitations of these families were and that they wouldn’t be approved for reunification without support because there were simply too many material obstacles standing in their way.
But more than anything else, we saw a clear path to how we could work together with these families to remove the obstacles that were keeping these kids in orphanages, even though they had loving families who wanted them home.
We were able to get both of those families the support they needed to build and prepare their homes so that they could get their granddaughter and their son back home.
That day was the beginning of our family reunification program, the beginning of working hand in hand with Honduran child protective services, and the beginning of seeing more kids growing up in loving and empowered families.
A few of the incredible families we've seen reunified over the last three years...
Over the past three years, we’ve visited over 200 families in the same process, all with different stories and unique situations, and we’ve seen almost 200 kids be reunified with their families.
That number continues to grow as our team meets and evaluates new families each week, develops empowerment plans to support them, and celebrates more kids being reunified with their families.
This has been possible because of YOU.
The Embraced team is much bigger than our staff here in Honduras, our board of directors, partners in the Honduran child protective services, and the families we partner with in the process of getting their kids back home.
We genuinely see YOU as an essential part of the Embraced team, making it possible to see more kids reunified with their families rather than growing up in institutions.
By donating financially, sharing stories with friends and family or on social media, hosting fundraisers, or thinking of and praying for the families that we are honored to work with, you are making it possible for kids to reunify with their families. All of the work Embraced does is entirely supported by individuals who have decided to support the vision of seeing kids reunified with their families.
We believe this is just the beginning of seeing more kids grow up in families in Honduras rather than being separated from their families by reasons caused by poverty. Thank you for being on this journey with us, we are more motivated now than ever to keep supporting more families and see more kids than ever return home.