For the purpose of this discussion, “orphan” is going to be used to describe any child in Haiti who is not living with at least one of their parents, either because of death, because their parents are missing, their parents can’t care for them due to economic challenges or their parents are so severely injured due to the quake that they can’t care for them.   It’s not a pretty picture, but it is what it is.

According to widely accepted statistics….

• prior to January 12, 2010, there were 380,000 orphans in Haiti.
• over 250,000 people died in the earthquake and the next number of days.
• approximately 900 children were airlifted out of Haiti under various humanitarian parole arrangements with the US, Canada, the Netherlands and others.    These were all children who were in the process of being adopted and they basically said, “Go home and finish the paperwork later.”
• It’s not statistically possible that all of the 250,000 people who perished in the quake were made up of “family units.”  (Meaning that Mom, Dad and the kids all died.)

So, while we still don’t know how many children fall into the very broad category of orphans as I spelled it out above, we do know that the number is substantially higher than it was before January 12.

The need is there, the kids are there, let’s get busy (or in many cases, stay busy)………

Tom