Homeless After High School?
Saarhome gives young adults who have left an orphanage the opportunity to shape their own futures.
Statistics show that young people in Europe take their time leaving their parents’ home. They are often in their mid-twenties before they pack their bags and find their own place. Why bother moving out? The family home offers all the comfort and safety a young person needs when starting out at college or in a career. This is a luxury that young orphans can only dream of. As soon as they celebrate their 18th birthday, they are forced to leave the orphanage as soon as they graduate from school. In other words, they lose their home, their family and their security.
A story from South Africa and an idea for a better world
Clouds of Hope in Underberg, South Africa, is home to some 80 orphans, from infants to teenagers. Like thousands of children around the world, they have lost their parents, mostly to AIDS or to violence. At Clouds of Hope, they grow up with other children in family groups supervised by a house mother and attend the local school. Clouds is their home, their chance for a future. However, like all orphanages, Clouds of Hope is only temporary.
Not all South African teens are ready to cope when they are forced to move out of an orphanage at age 18. Often, they go back to the townships, where they quickly fall into familiar patterns of violence, drugs, prostitution and disease. Four years ago, two young women who had grown up in Clouds committed suicide in despair after losing their home. This tragedy gave birth to a future-focused idea.
Sponsored by the organization Be Your Own Hero e.V., the Saarhome project is a supervised group home for young adults from Clouds of Hope who have finished school. It provides a safe haven and a family setting for young adults while they complete vocational training or go to college. Their house parents teach them how to run a household, manage money and take care of themselves. The young men and women also take on duties and responsibilities for the entire project. They give back by mentoring the younger children. In this way, they gain the experience and skills they need to become self-sufficient. Only then will they be able to help overcome the socioeconomic problems in their home region or country.
Saarhome provides a practical, sustainable solution to a problem found all over the world. Too often, donations from relief organizations go exclusively to children’s charities while young adults are forgotten. If we want our donations to have a sustainable impact, we need to think differently. Support and care must not end immediately after high school. Preparing young people for the future and giving them the opportunities and, above all, the structure they need to find their own way is the key to success. Only when this generation has managed to break the patterns of their parents’ generation can they take on social responsibilities and jobs. Only then does the organization’s long-term commitment have an effect. And only then will we have made the world a better place. It’s a job that requires courage and dedication. The joy of everyone involved makes all the effort worth it!
Be Your Own Hero e.V.
The organization Be Your Own Hero e.V. was founded in 2006 for children and adolescents around the world affected by HIV/AIDS. “Be your own hero” is both the message and the goal: the non-profit organization draws attention to the issue of HIV/AIDS through local and global initiatives, provides assistance on projects, and supports ideas on site. This way, young people around the world get a chance to become their own hero. The Saarhome project is just one of many projects the organization supports in the Underberg/Himeville region of South Africa. Further details can be found at www.beyourownhero-ev.de.
Almuth Czwikla (*1983) is a social scientist and certified PR consultant. She works in corporate communications at a large company. Working as a volunteer, she assumed public relations responsibility in 2012 for Be Your Own Hero e.V. in Wolfsburg, Germany.