Abandoned Babies Part III - Interview

Viva interviews Rogers Mbaziira, who works with our city-wide network CRANE in Kampala, Uganda. Part of Rogers’ job is to work with a group of network members – churches, homes for abandoned babies and other projects – that are committed to putting abandoned babies into local families. (Learn more about this group, called Families For Children.) That means lots of networking between projects and churches and families, with some interesting results. Go ahead, listen in...

Viva: Rogers, you have an amazing job. Can you tell us what your normal day looks like?

RM: I used to visit the foster families a lot, but now more of my time is spent on ‘mobilisation’. Most parents call in and some email FFC for advice. I spend most of my time replying to them, and often that involves referring them to different agencies or projects that can help. That’s why it’s so important to work as a network, because we have these other contacts we can put them in touch with. 

Sometimes I go to meet the families, when they need to be visited or helped in any way. I visit babies’ homes to build relationships and to learn more what is happening there and link with them. That helps me to work better as a liaison between the families and the projects they adopt from. 

The rest of the time I'm holding meetings with different groups to plan and think through adoption issues, plan for events and trainings like adoptive parents trainings... I also organise coffee mornings, pastors' breakfasts, training for social workers and probation workers and child rights advocates workshops.

Viva: Often it seems that adoption and foster care are not popular options in Uganda. Why do you think that is?

RM: Yes, it is true that so much stigma is attached to this area. People in Uganda see adoption as something for international people, and not for them. But there are different reasons people do not want to adopt. Some have excuses, like they’ve got a big family and are in charge of their relatives’ children. Big extended families in Uganda! 

There are also cultural myths and beliefs about such children. Bloodlines are very important in Ugandan families. Many people believe these children have a curse, or that they may bring problems into their families because of the different blood. 

Some of them prefer adopting girls, not boys, for reasons like boys are hard to manage and also in terms of bride price – it is the girl who brings that.

Some couples may be willing but other family members from the wider family refuse to let them adopt for these reasons. Others think that adoption is for the rich only.

Viva: With all this pressure, how does anyone ever decide to adopt?

RM: Well, some of them just lack information and they need to be sensitised more about adoption and foster care. We help do that. Some of them have come to us after being encouraged through our media campaigns, church mobilisaition and other meetings, when they discover that it is possible to adopt. 

Viva: Tell us more about the media campaigns...

RM: Together with the babies’ homes we join hands and encourage the public about adoption through the radio, TV shows, newspaper articles. We also do this with adoptive parents and the government probation office. 

Viva: You talk about church mobilisation - what does that look like?

RM: We now have a working group of more than five people doing the church mobilisation, visiting churches, doing small groups like men’s ministry, women’s groups, couples’ groups and other groups in churches just to encourage them to think about adoption. Actually, I had a great experience doing this myself this year. 

I was on a prayer walk with Kampala Baptist Church, and I told one man Jacob about my work. After that he and his wife wanted more information about adopting and about life as an adoptive family, because many people don’t know about these things. Then they started the process of adopting a son, and we have been able to give them emotional support because we are in contact with many families who have already done all of these things.

It’s so good to work in the network because we know all these people in different projects, different parts of the city and also all the adoptive parents. For new parents, we can give them help by connecting them with these people. And for the projects that take abandoned babies, we can help them find each other and work together and find parents to adopt the babies. It is a very good job!

If you’d like to ask more questions about working with adoptive parents, or you know someone who would like to get involved with Families For Children, please email our Uganda office at africa@viva.org