Disabled children are at the highest risk of ending up in orphanages due to difficulty and cost of care as well as stigma surrounding disabilities. Africa Youth Rising works to stop the flow of disabled children into orphanages through advocacy and through supporting the family’s care of the disabled child.

This support can take several different forms from medical to education to social. We can help families and children receive proper diagnoses, see appropriate specialists, get expensive specialized testing, as well as getting prescriptions for medications. We assist in the procurement and payment of these medications as they are costly and hard to acquire.

We help obtain entrance into special educational institutions and if needed provide scholarships to attend these institutions which is discussed in more detail in the education section.

And so importantly we provide opportunities for disabled families to come together to see that they are not alone, and to help connect them to community and government resources.

Our biggest project to specifically disrupt the flow of disabled children into orphanages is Grace House, a free disabled child day care. Read more about it here.