About Lumos
Our Approach
We work with international donors, governments and communities, helping them redirect funds from orphanages to provide health, education and social services, so children can be raised in loving families. We train professionals to deliver better care and support. We transform the conditions that leave children at risk of trafficking and abuse. We help families to bring their children home.
A Global Organisation
Lumos works around the world to help the millions of children in orphanages regain their right to a family.
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While the reasons children end up in orphanages may differ, certain aspects remain the same. Extreme poverty is the main reason that most children end up in orphanages.
Our flexible model works by adapting to the cultural drivers of institutionalisation in every country that we work in. We use demonstration projects to enable the change needed to replace orphanages with community-based services. Governments in other areas can then replicate these. At present, we have programmes in Moldova, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Haiti.
To reach our goal of ending institutionalisation of children by 2050, Lumos uses evidence-based models to effect change.
Impact
Since 2009, Lumos has prevented 20,915 children from entering harmful institutions. We work to keep families together and provide support for children within their communities.
Future Goals
By 2025
We will have national plans for reform in place in countries with large numbers of children in orphanages. There will be advocacy work taking place in every global region dealing with different cultural pressures that cause institutionalisation of children. Globally, major funders will divert funds away from institutions and into community-based services. We'll have research-based evidence available about what works in each different region.
By 2035
We will have helped 4 million children to leave institutions or prevented them from entering them in the first place. We will have trained more than 100,000 professionals and policy-makers to deliver community-based services. There will be clear, research-based evidence available on better outcomes for children that is tailored for different parts of the world.
By 2050
There will be no more children living in institutions anywhere in the world. All countries will have community-based services to support all children living with their families. At least $15 billion of major donor funding will have been leveraged to fund global deinstitutionalisation, including from the World Bank, the European Union and the US Government.