Day 214 Jason Goodman Finds Braverman Apartment Supplement Hillary's Leakers, Hackers and Henchmen

In the early morning hours of day 214, Jason returns to New York City to execute a super secret mission that takes us back to the original question of days 1 - 53... 

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 116 - DynCorp Harvest, Killing Is Good Business

143 Pages of DynCorp Sheriffs in One Day

Ashton Kushner vs General Michael Flynn

Enter Paul Helliwell and the Havana Christmas Conference of 1946

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 91 - Braverman, Haiti, and Me, Who Killed Monica Petersen?

Summary Slide Version Oil, Arms, DynCorp, UN Peacekeepers, Rape, Child Traffic, Organ Harvest,

All One Thing

Slow and Subtle Wins the Race for DynCorp Oil, Arms, DynCorp, UN Peacekeepers, Rape, Child Traffic, Organ Harvest, All One Thing

Slow and Subtle Wins the Race for DynCorp - How Few Operatives and Informants It Takes Oil, Arms, DynCorp, UN Peacekeepers, Rape, Child Traffic, Organ Harvest, All One Thing

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 88 - Braverman, Haiti, and Me, WH Killed Monica Perterson

DisneyWorld in the North, Test in the Center, Harvest and Micro-Shark in the South

   

Storyboarding CF Ops with Trello, Haiti Coup DisneyWorld in the North, Test in the Center, Harvest and Micro-Shark in the South Will Braverman Investigate Missing DynCorp Kids?

 

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 87 - Braverman Found? Who Killed Monica Petersen?

A Braver Man Found? Apparently Not?

Stingers to Sarin to Kidneys to Hearts

Will Braverman Investigate Missing DynCorp Kids?

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Feds Bust Foster Care Child Exploitation Enterprise

Welcome to the world of child welfare.

Always remember, "It takes a village"... "Then it pillages the natural human resources."

Indiana Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Engaging in a Child Exploitation Enterprise

A member of a highly sophisticated, global child exploitation enterprise dedicated to the sexual exploitation of children was sentenced to prison today.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the Western District of North Carolina; Special Agent in Charge John A. Strong of the FBI’s Charlotte, North Carolina, Division; Special Agent in Charge Harold H. Shaw of the FBI’s Boston Division; and Special Agent in Charge Paul Wysopal of the FBI’s Tampa, Florida, Division made the announcement.

Michael Fluckiger, 46, of Portland, Indiana, was sentenced to 240 months in prison for engaging in a child exploitation enterprise, along with lifetime supervised release.  U.S. District Judge Richard L. Voorhees of the Western District of North Carolina imposed the sentence.  Fluckiger pleaded guilty on December 2, 2015 and has remained in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service since his arrest on March 4, 2015.  

According to admissions made in connection with the plea, Fluckiger acted as the co-administrator of a highly-sophisticated global enterprise dedicated to the sexual exploitation of children, organized via a members-only website that operated on the Tor anonymity network, through which he and more than 150,000 other members authored and viewed tens of thousands of postings relating to sexual abuse of children as young as infants and toddlers.  According to admissions, Fluckiger was heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of the website – including managing membership, developing and enforcing strict rules and deleting website content that did not depict or discuss child pornography.  In addition, Fluckiger admitted that website members employed advanced technological means in order to undermine law enforcement’s attempts to identify them, including the use of a hidden service on the Tor anonymity network and elaborate file encryption.

On Sept. 16, 2016, a federal jury convicted co-defendant and lead administrator of the site, Steven W. Chase, 57, of Naples, Florida, of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise and related charges.  A sentencing date for Chase has not yet been set.  Co-defendant and global moderator of the site, David Lynn Browning, 47, of Wooton, Kentucky, pleaded guilty on December 18, 2015, and is scheduled to be sentenced on February 7, 2017.  

As a result of the ongoing investigation, at least 48 alleged hands-on abusers have been prosecuted and 49 American children who were subjected to sexual abuse have been successfully identified or rescued.

The FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children Section, Major Case Coordination Unit and Digital Analysis and Research Center investigated the case with assistance from the FBI’s Charlotte, Tampa, and Boston, Field Offices.  Trial Attorney Reginald E. Jones of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Cortney Randall of the Western District of North Carolina prosecuted the case.  

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.  Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

FBI & NYPD: Clinton Foundation Probed for Money Laundering, Financial Transactions with Islamic Terror Groups

UPDATE: It seems Sorcha Faal has used me as a citation source.

The following is a publication of True Pundit, not me.

What I do is capture everything, preserve it, and add it to my bucket of crap I like to scrape off the internet, or what many will understand as propaganda.

Sorcha Fall sucks because it was mean to my Sweetie.

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: How To Spot Poorly Constructed Propaganda

There are cyber rumors that Sorcha is David Brook, who sucks, too, but hey, what do I know?

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=120195

I know I feel better now that I have clarified my position on Sorcha Faal using my work, improperly, as a source of citation.

I even have a copyright they violated because they used my work to make money and give legitimacy to its propaganda.

This is about child welfare, and not once, has anyone, but me, has said one word about it.

This looks like a pathetic effort to make me look bad.

Since you have found yourself here, enjoy going through my database, for I have dedicated my entire blog for justice to be served, though the heavens shall fall.

#32819#

~END~

I am just going to leave this right here for now.

Get ready.

Money launderers who bragged on a secret federal wire tap that they could employ Clinton Foundation connections to funnel and cleanse millions in illicit cash have sparked a newly-minted FBI investigation into the embattled charity run by Hillary Clinton and her family, federal law enforcement officials confirm.

The money laundering allegations being probed by the FBI have been buoyed by recent revelations and evidence discovered by the NYPD from a laptop confiscated from Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s Manhattan residence. According to NYPD, several of the emails recovered on the hard drive disclosed sensitive financial details of the Clintons and their charity. That evidence is now in the hands of the FBI too, whose New York field office has opened a parallel Clinton Foundation investigation.

Federal law enforcement sources said the Los Angeles-based money launderers, who are part of a separate federal investigation, discussed previously using Clinton Foundation personnel to domesticate foreign funds that could not be legally brought into the United States through traditional bank wires and deposits.

NYPD sources said Weiner’s email treasure trove contained correspondences regarding a company linked to President Bill Clinton and at least one offshore company, a South American affiliate of the Clinton Foundation. The emails also contained offshore financial correspondences, the source said.

Federal agents said one U.S.-based company is owned by Bill Clinton and according to linked banking intelligence discovered in emails, that entity disbursed millions of dollars via wire transfers through global banks to additional accounts controlled by the Clinton family and its charity. NYPD intelligence sources versed in anti-money laundering, said the emails and other items obtained from Weiner’s laptop paint a portrait of a complex corporate umbrella strategically formulated to seemingly operate and avoid law-enforcement detection.

“There’s sophistication in how this works and distributes cash to other accounts,” a federal intelligence source said. “Do we think this involves gun-running or drug-dealing criminals? Not intentionally, but the infrastructure is set up almost identically. Proceeds and income are being hidden the same way.”

Has the Clinton Foundation and/or affiliates underwritten or profited from terror groups? It is distinctly possible it has conducted business with terror-backed financial concerns, federal agents said based on a cache of suspicious financial activity reports filed by institutions with the U.S. Treasury which flagged transactions with known terror-linked cartels, including Islamic factions.

While the sophistication of the financial structuring and money movement may seem familiar to law enforcement, this case is anything but a normal investigation, notwithstanding its targets include a former U.S. president and secretary of state. Normal joint operating protocols between the FBI and Justice Department have been abandoned. FBI agents in the Los Angeles field office, where the money laundering probe launched have been continuously hassled by Justice Department naysayers who want the investigation spiked. Likewise, Justice Department officials have instructed FBI agents in New York City to stand down and abandon the inquiry. However, the Bureau has refused to buckle, especially after receiving corroborating evidence from the NYPD, FBI officials said.

Is the Clinton Foundation federal probe the work of FBI agents gone rogue? No. The FBI agents, with approval from headquarters in Washington D.C., have been sanctioned to continue the investigation, ignoring directives from Attorney General Loretta Lynch and her underlings, including Leslie Caldwell, Lynch’s point running the Justice Department’s criminal division.

Neither Lynch nor Caldwell were available for comment.

The FBI’s probe of the Clinton Foundation is actually a compartmentalized investigation. Field offices in Los Angeles and New York are spearheading the case but other offices are involved and contributing, sources said.

According to federal sources, transactions linked to Clinton corporate holdings have raised several regulatory eyebrows even beyond of the Justice Department, specifically in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury that reports to the Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. FinCEN’s mission is to combat and pinpoint money laundering for personal profit or underwriting terrorism through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence and strategic use of financial authorities, namely banks and investment houses.

According to federal sources, FinCEN is warehousing numerous Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) forwarded to Treasury from financial institutions for transactions from Clinton-owned entities, both in the United States and globally, all triggered by anti-money laundering safeguards. These reports are confidential but federal agents are using these filings as key pieces to the Clinton Foundation financial puzzle.

According to details gleaned from FinCEN, federal agents acknowledge the Clinton Foundation operates a menagerie of subsidiaries and corporate structures beyond the parent charity. According to law enforcement sources, the FinCEN revelations coupled with the emails recovered by the NYPD detail a complex myriad of shell corporations linked to the Clintons and their charity. FBI sources describe these financial entanglements as vast and global. And many defy normal operating procedures of legitimate charities, officials said.

Has the Clinton Foundation underwritten or profited from linked terror groups per the intelligence warehoused in FinCEN’s vast Treasury database? It is distinctly possible the Clinton Foundation has conducted business — knowingly or not — with terror-backed financial concerns or groups, federal agents said, especially because these are the exact suspicious transactions the U.S. Treasury mandates compliance and security officials in U.S. financial institutions to report to FinCEN under threat of hefty fines and imprisonment.

Triggered by such anti-money laundering controls, federal investigators, for example, said they have examined a Clinton-affiliated offshore entity that essentially is a multi-million dollar private for-profit equity firm operated like an unsanctioned U.S. hedge fund outside the regulatory reach of the Securities and Exchange Commission. That for-profit business however, is controlled by New York-based Clinton Foundation, a not-for-profit registered charity. Also, while the profits of the offshore company are taxable in its foreign domicile, the parent company — the Clinton Foundation — is exempt from the same annual taxes in the United States.

Likewise, because the affiliate of the Clinton Foundation operates as a private offshore company, no one — including regulators in the United States — is privy to its clients, its investments or whether it perhaps served as a front company to secretly commission pay-for-play political schemes and favors during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

The challenge for the investigators? The Clinton Foundation and family have dozens of such affiliates and companies, an intricate corporate tapestry confusing to outsiders and intentionally complex by design.That’s why FBI agents in more than five separate field offices are working this case, federal sources said.

http://truepundit.com/fbi-nypd-clinton-foundation-probed-for-global-money-laundering-financial-transactions-with-islamic-terror-groups/

One cannot sell money and make a profit unless historically excluded populations are included. 

Hey Pretty Preet, can a gal get a "non-spoilage" request of docs?

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 86 - Where is Eric Braverman? Who Killed Monica Petersen?

Going Down To Haiti - How Low Can It Go?

Monica Petersen's 100 Page Thesis, BMP in Haiti

Add Rajiv Shah To Good People Used By CF

Going Down To Haiti - How Low Can It Go?

 

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 85 - Where is Eric Braverman? Who Killed Monica Petersen?

Do You Believe in Icebergs?

CNN Cover Stories? Cell Phone Records and Email Metadata Unwind the Conspiracy

Ude Ulfkotte Dies of Investigative Journalism

 Cell Phone Records and Email Metadata Unwind the Conspiracy



Ulfkotte Said CIA Plant Sarin Gas Stories For Gaddafi and Saddam

 Ude Ulfkotte Dies of Investigative Journalism

 

Monica Petersen's 100 Page Thesis, BMP in Haiti

Ulfkotte Said CIA Planted Sarin Gas Stories For Gaddafi and Saddam


Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Captialism With A Conscience: The New Human Trafficking Industry Model

This was sent to me from our friends over at Legally Kidnapped.

It is rare when I find someone who is able to engage in a fact-based discussion dealing with the administrative structure and business model of child welfare, so when I do, I stop to see if I am able to disprove their position.

Mind you, he could have stopped midway in his segment and conserved his political partisanship, but there was a theme which rang through his presentation, and it was quite simple.  Fraud.

This individual is from the State of Washington and sets forth his argument that the child welfare industry was designed to be corrupt based on the fact that it is run by private corporations, the same as federal prisons, therefore, there are no civil rights as corporations have immunity.

He is absolutely correct, but now there is legislation on the state level to support his position statement.

Building Companies With a Social Purpose

The theory is called "Capitalism With A Conscience".

Increasingly, successful companies in the 21  century are those that not only sell and deliver a service or a product, but also contribute to society … organizations with a conscience that goes beyond the bottom line.This ‘do good’ principle should evolve out of a corporate credo that encompasses commercial strategies that maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, as well as profits for shareholders.And, it is now becoming obvious that this altruistic approach does in fact positively contribute to P&L figures, engaging consumers with a feel good factor that builds brand loyalty and cements a relationship beyond the price/value equation.

As a recent global study involving 8,000 consumers in 16 countries carried out on behalf of PR group Edelman revealed, ‘social purpose’ as a purchase trigger has risen 26 per cent since 2008.

In a nutshell, this is what the Clinton Global Initiative does.

It markets the opportunity of social impact investments whereby generating a profit for its clients through child welfare programs, under the guise of religious salvation, to justify the trafficking of children of the poor.

Selling chattel is the oldest form of survival, and in the direction is being privatized.

Child welfare is being formatted to adopt the banking industry model, replete with fees, penalties and interest, devoid of regulation, reminiscent of the peculiar institution.

All investments are guaranteed a return as child welfare, or rather all social services, are to be privatized, meaning, there are no rules for government intervention in the business activities of a corporation, in this instance, a for-profit.

They want to get their hands on the Social Security Trust Fund, badly, for investment purposes, of course.

This is why there is a push for deregulation of the private sector because any injustices would have to be litigated in a court of law and everyone knows that the poor are not afforded equal justice (pun intended).

No money, no justice.

Then, let's take this a step further.

If the child welfare industry is privatized and one wishes to address the fact that the child placing agency keeps internal policy on generating false evidence to remove a child from a family, keep it in the system, assign unnecessary services and medication, while fast tracking to adoption, this means that, not only is there profit being generated for its investors, but it is also a challenge to its business model which may be a violation of its trade secrets, or rather intellectual property.

Without permission, or fair use standards, intellectual property cannot be used.

This is another reason why child welfare is exempt and excluded from FOIA and the legal proceedings are closed.

This is why child welfare corporations and its employees do, in fact, possess the constitutional right to lie in a court of law and it was granted pursuant to the Adoption and Safe Families Act.

He brings up an entirely plausible reason why "The Elected Ones" refuse to stand up and speak out about the fraud in child welfare as he alleges they are part of the corporate structure, but I am going to simplify this and just say politicians tend not to "shat where they make their bread."

This is why there are no civil rights in child welfare.  There is no money in it.

The child welfare industry funds political campaigns, and that includes the marketing campaigns to generate a profitable return in the best interests of the child, ya know, to grow up to its fullest potential....to maximize corporate revenues.

"Businesses, philanthropists, foundations, congregations of every faith have to step up too because there is work to be done in every community, debates to be joined in city halls and state capitols, and even if it may not seem like it right now, there is common ground to build on." 

 Hillary Clinton, Children's Defense Fund Gala, November 17, 2016

I guess I just failed to disprove his statement.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

The Clintons, Haiti, Children and The Peculiar Institution

What a wonderful, living example of the peculiar institution!

Selling chattel is the oldest form of survival, and, of course, it is always done in the name of God because you cannot audit God.

Even the White House has been found to promote the principals of the monetization of children in poverty who hail from the darker persuasion. 

The Haitian child poverty model was imported from the United States and has had many faces representing privatization of human trafficking in the name of God.

The adoptive families will secure tens of thousands in adoption tax credits as the Christian child welfare organizations can bill the Social Security Trust fund for the administration while securing hundreds of millions of dollars in grants.

Eventually, money is funneled into political campaigns to keep the political leaders in office to perpetuate the fraud scheme.

No one cares about children of the poor, even when policies, ensconced with nefarious aspirations of wealth, are designed to increase the conditions and rates of poverty in order to acquire more goods.

Papal Bull Dum Diversas18 June, 1452

“We weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso -- to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit -- by having secured the said faculty, the said King Alfonso, or, by his authority, the aforesaid infante, justly and lawfully has acquired and possessed, and doth possess, these islands, lands, harbors, and seas, and they do of right belong and pertain to the said King Alfonso and his successors”.

The Evangelical Adoption Campaign

As Bill Clinton works to spring U.S. missionaries charged with kidnapping in Haiti, the case highlights a new evangelical strategy: Adopt Third World babies and convert them.

For the past week, the news from Haiti has been dominated by the story of 10 American evangelicals from Idaho who were caught at the border of the Dominican Republic attempting to take 33 Haitian children, many with living parents, out of the country without documentation. The Americans, missionaries with the recently created New Life Children’s Refuge, were arrested and charged with kidnapping and criminal conspiracy—a reprieve from the child trafficking charges they may have faced.

American evangelical churches are embracing a new orphan theology that urges Christians to see adoption and “orphan-care” as an integral part of their faith.

The details that emerged about the group’s plans and leader, Laura Silsby, were unsavory. Although Silsby, the legally embattled CEO of a personal shopping business, claimed that the group never intended to put the children up for adoption, an itinerary for New Life’s mission, published by an affiliated Southern Baptist church, bluntly described a plan to “gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages” onto a bus, then take them to a hotel in the Dominican Republic. There, New Life hoped to build permanent orphanage facilities, including a beachfront restaurant and “seaside villas” for prospective adoptive parents—amenities that underscore their understanding of local adoption residency requirements, even as they claimed ignorance of Haitian law. Additional planning and fundraising documents described the group’s goal to “equip each child” with the opportunity “for adoption into a loving Christian family,” and help them “find new life in Christ.”

After the arrests, Silsby and supporters explained that they’d been called by God to help orphans in Haiti, that they were “acting not only in faith but God’s faith.”

The news of an adoption organization driven by missionary zeal surprised many, but it shouldn’t. Although New Life’s illegal actions have been condemned by other religious adoption agencies, their sense of calling fits into a growing movement of American evangelical churches embracing a new orphan theology that urges Christians to see adoption and “orphan-care” as an integral part of their faith—and a means of spreading the gospel.

This January, Christianity Today declared adoption the next culture war issue, and a major theological development of 2009. Indeed, 2009 was filled with news of adoption, as Russell Moore, dean of the theological school at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, released his book Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches, exhorting Christians to “be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans close to home and around the world.”

Moore’s message came with both political and theological justifications, both positioning adoption as part of a holistic “pro-life” stance and, in a stunning admission, as a means for Christians to fulfill the Great Commission: evangelizing and making converts of the nations. In fact, adoption has become such a critical, though under-recognized, part of the evangelical agenda that in 2008, The Wall Street Journal’s “Taste” section advisedSenator John McCain to highlight his adopted daughter—once the target of an ugly smear campaign—as a means of shoring up his lukewarm evangelical appeal.

This June, Moore helped pass a Southern Baptist Convention resolution calling upon all 16 million members of the denomination to prayerfully consider whether or not God was calling them to adopt. With both domestic and international adoption described as almost “contagious” in evangelical churches, with even small congregations boasting dozens of adopted children, it’s evident that more Christians are feeling that “call”—whether from God, or from leaders like Moore.

This November, hundreds of churches participated in “Orphan Sunday,” a nationwide adoption event where churches focused their sermons on promoting adoption as a Christian duty. And in 2007, Focus on the Family estimates it reached 19 million people through its “Cry of the Orphan” campaign. A number of upcoming conferences will further the message, including the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit this April, which will now focus on Haiti, promoting adoption as a “long-term response” to the crisis and the best way that “ordinary people can make a lasting difference for orphans.”

In the wake of the New Life fiasco, Russell Moore worried the news would “give a black eye to the orphan-care movement,” as anti-abortion vigilantes had to the pro-life movement—a lawless take on a shared agenda. But there are larger problems with the call for American Christians to adopt en masse. Among them are the widely misunderstood definitions of orphans, which lead to ever-ballooning estimates of children in need of adoption. Another is the strong taint of colonialism in casting American adopters as saviors and focusing on adoption as a solution for impoverished communities. In some countries in recent years, including Liberia and Ethiopia, religious adoption organizations have been singled out for censure by national authorities, accused of using church ties to legitimize unethical practices.

To be sure, many Christians and non-Christians involved in adoption keep these considerations in mind, and while the activist group Christian Defense Coalition is campaigning for the release of New Life missionaries, many other Christian groups have distanced themselves from a plan some denounced as “child trafficking.” But the wholesale call for Christians to adopt as a solution for poverty and disaster—often at a cost of up to $30,000 per child—and particularly for purposes of proselytization, seems destined to lead to more people jumping headlong into a perceived “calling” to care for orphans without understanding the complex ethics that surround all adoptions.For the past week, the news from Haiti has been dominated by the story of 10 American evangelicals from Idaho who were caught at the border of the Dominican Republic attempting to take 33 Haitian children, many with living parents, out of the country without documentation. The Americans, missionaries with the recently created New Life Children’s Refuge, were arrested and charged with kidnapping and criminal conspiracy—a reprieve from the child trafficking charges they may have faced.

American evangelical churches are embracing a new orphan theology that urges Christians to see adoption and “orphan-care” as an integral part of their faith.

The details that emerged about the group’s plans and leader, Laura Silsby, were unsavory. Although Silsby, the legally embattled CEO of a personal shopping business, claimed that the group never intended to put the children up for adoption, an itinerary for New Life’s mission, published by an affiliated Southern Baptist church, bluntly described a plan to “gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages” onto a bus, then take them to a hotel in the Dominican Republic. There, New Life hoped to build permanent orphanage facilities, including a beachfront restaurant and “seaside villas” for prospective adoptive parents—amenities that underscore their understanding of local adoption residency requirements, even as they claimed ignorance of Haitian law. Additional planning and fundraising documents described the group’s goal to “equip each child” with the opportunity “for adoption into a loving Christian family,” and help them “find new life in Christ.”

After the arrests, Silsby and supporters explained that they’d been called by God to help orphans in Haiti, that they were “acting not only in faith but God’s faith.”

The news of an adoption organization driven by missionary zeal surprised many, but it shouldn’t. Although New Life’s illegal actions have been condemned by other religious adoption agencies, their sense of calling fits into a growing movement of American evangelical churches embracing a new orphan theology that urges Christians to see adoption and “orphan-care” as an integral part of their faith—and a means of spreading the gospel.

This January, Christianity Today declared adoption the next culture war issue, and a major theological development of 2009. Indeed, 2009 was filled with news of adoption, as Russell Moore, dean of the theological school at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, released his book Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches, exhorting Christians to “be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans close to home and around the world.”

Moore’s message came with both political and theological justifications, both positioning adoption as part of a holistic “pro-life” stance and, in a stunning admission, as a means for Christians to fulfill the Great Commission: evangelizing and making converts of the nations. In fact, adoption has become such a critical, though under-recognized, part of the evangelical agenda that in 2008, The Wall Street Journal’s “Taste” section advisedSenator John McCain to highlight his adopted daughter—once the target of an ugly smear campaign—as a means of shoring up his lukewarm evangelical appeal.

This June, Moore helped pass a Southern Baptist Convention resolution calling upon all 16 million members of the denomination to prayerfully consider whether or not God was calling them to adopt. With both domestic and international adoption described as almost “contagious” in evangelical churches, with even small congregations boasting dozens of adopted children, it’s evident that more Christians are feeling that “call”—whether from God, or from leaders like Moore.

This November, hundreds of churches participated in “Orphan Sunday,” a nationwide adoption event where churches focused their sermons on promoting adoption as a Christian duty. And in 2007, Focus on the Family estimates it reached 19 million people through its “Cry of the Orphan” campaign. A number of upcoming conferences will further the message, including the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit this April, which will now focus on Haiti, promoting adoption as a “long-term response” to the crisis and the best way that “ordinary people can make a lasting difference for orphans.”

In the wake of the New Life fiasco, Russell Moore worried the news would “give a black eye to the orphan-care movement,” as anti-abortion vigilantes had to the pro-life movement—a lawless take on a shared agenda. But there are larger problems with the call for American Christians to adopt en masse. Among them are the widely misunderstood definitions of orphans, which lead to ever-ballooning estimates of children in need of adoption. Another is the strong taint of colonialism in casting American adopters as saviors and focusing on adoption as a solution for impoverished communities. In some countries in recent years, including Liberia and Ethiopia, religious adoption organizations have been singled out for censure by national authorities, accused of using church ties to legitimize unethical practices.

To be sure, many Christians and non-Christians involved in adoption keep these considerations in mind, and while the activist group Christian Defense Coalition is campaigning for the release of New Life missionaries, many other Christian groups have distanced themselves from a plan some denounced as “child trafficking.” But the wholesale call for Christians to adopt as a solution for poverty and disaster—often at a cost of up to $30,000 per child—and particularly for purposes of proselytization, seems destined to lead to more people jumping headlong into a perceived “calling” to care for orphans without understanding the complex ethics that surround all adoptions.For the past week, the news from Haiti has been dominated by the story of 10 American evangelicals from Idaho who were caught at the border of the Dominican Republic attempting to take 33 Haitian children, many with living parents, out of the country without documentation. The Americans, missionaries with the recently created New Life Children’s Refuge, were arrested and charged with kidnapping and criminal conspiracy—a reprieve from the child trafficking charges they may have faced.

American evangelical churches are embracing a new orphan theology that urges Christians to see adoption and “orphan-care” as an integral part of their faith.

The details that emerged about the group’s plans and leader, Laura Silsby, were unsavory. Although Silsby, the legally embattled CEO of a personal shopping business, claimed that the group never intended to put the children up for adoption, an itinerary for New Life’s mission, published by an affiliated Southern Baptist church, bluntly described a plan to “gather 100 orphans from the streets and collapsed orphanages” onto a bus, then take them to a hotel in the Dominican Republic. There, New Life hoped to build permanent orphanage facilities, including a beachfront restaurant and “seaside villas” for prospective adoptive parents—amenities that underscore their understanding of local adoption residency requirements, even as they claimed ignorance of Haitian law. Additional planning and fundraising documents described the group’s goal to “equip each child” with the opportunity “for adoption into a loving Christian family,” and help them “find new life in Christ.”

After the arrests, Silsby and supporters explained that they’d been called by God to help orphans in Haiti, that they were “acting not only in faith but God’s faith.”

The news of an adoption organization driven by missionary zeal surprised many, but it shouldn’t. Although New Life’s illegal actions have been condemned by other religious adoption agencies, their sense of calling fits into a growing movement of American evangelical churches embracing a new orphan theology that urges Christians to see adoption and “orphan-care” as an integral part of their faith—and a means of spreading the gospel.

This January, Christianity Today declared adoption the next culture war issue, and a major theological development of 2009. Indeed, 2009 was filled with news of adoption, as Russell Moore, dean of the theological school at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, released his book Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches, exhorting Christians to “be at the forefront of the adoption of orphans close to home and around the world.”

Moore’s message came with both political and theological justifications, both positioning adoption as part of a holistic “pro-life” stance and, in a stunning admission, as a means for Christians to fulfill the Great Commission: evangelizing and making converts of the nations. In fact, adoption has become such a critical, though under-recognized, part of the evangelical agenda that in 2008, The Wall Street Journal’s “Taste” section advisedSenator John McCain to highlight his adopted daughter—once the target of an ugly smear campaign—as a means of shoring up his lukewarm evangelical appeal.

This June, Moore helped pass a Southern Baptist Convention resolution calling upon all 16 million members of the denomination to prayerfully consider whether or not God was calling them to adopt. With both domestic and international adoption described as almost “contagious” in evangelical churches, with even small congregations boasting dozens of adopted children, it’s evident that more Christians are feeling that “call”—whether from God, or from leaders like Moore.

This November, hundreds of churches participated in “Orphan Sunday,” a nationwide adoption event where churches focused their sermons on promoting adoption as a Christian duty. And in 2007, Focus on the Family estimates it reached 19 million people through its “Cry of the Orphan” campaign. A number of upcoming conferences will further the message, including the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit this April, which will now focus on Haiti, promoting adoption as a “long-term response” to the crisis and the best way that “ordinary people can make a lasting difference for orphans.”

In the wake of the New Life fiasco, Russell Moore worried the news would “give a black eye to the orphan-care movement,” as anti-abortion vigilantes had to the pro-life movement—a lawless take on a shared agenda. But there are larger problems with the call for American Christians to adopt en masse. Among them are the widely misunderstood definitions of orphans, which lead to ever-ballooning estimates of children in need of adoption. Another is the strong taint of colonialism in casting American adopters as saviors and focusing on adoption as a solution for impoverished communities. In some countries in recent years, including Liberia and Ethiopia, religious adoption organizations have been singled out for censure by national authorities, accused of using church ties to legitimize unethical practices.

To be sure, many Christians and non-Christians involved in adoption keep these considerations in mind, and while the activist group Christian Defense Coalition is campaigning for the release of New Life missionaries, many other Christian groups have distanced themselves from a plan some denounced as “child trafficking.” But the wholesale call for Christians to adopt as a solution for poverty and disaster—often at a cost of up to $30,000 per child—and particularly for purposes of proselytization, seems destined to lead to more people jumping headlong into a perceived “calling” to care for orphans without understanding the complex ethics that surround all adoptions.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Wikileaks Uncovers Child Trafficking In Haiti

Snatching children from the poor who traditionally hail from the nations of "darker persuasions" in the name of God is just the oldest form of survival.

The proper term of snatching kids from parents is called "termination of parental rights" for "abuse and neglect" which are in the "best interests of the child", just because they are poor.

This is foster care.

Welcome to the unraveling of child welfare fraud, not just in Haiti, not just in the U.S., but the entire world.

This is the Clinton Global Initiative.

This is the Adoption and Families Safe Act.

This is privatization.

https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/32/323249_-os-haiti-us-legal-adviser-to-u-s-haiti-missionaries.html

The child snatchers: Special report from Haiti on the U.S. missionaries accused of 'stealing orphans' and why - most shockingly of all - their parents say they would give them away again

Four women suspected of being involved in an illegal adoption scheme
are being held at behind bars at Port-au-Prince

We found Benatide's mother high up a mountain in a tiny house with half the roof ripped off by the earthquake and scrawny chickens pecking in the dust under a fierce Haitian sun.

For longer than she cares to remember, it has been a struggle to keep her three children on the few pounds a week she makes from selling vegetables which grow on the scrap of land surrounding her home.

But now Adrienne Poulime has one less mouth to feed.

Ten days ago she gave away her youngest daughter, 12-year-old Benatide, to a group of American Baptists who promised to give her a better life abroad by finding a Christian family to adopt her.

'There was nothing left for the girl here after the earthquake last month,' says Adrienne simply as she sits on a pile of rubble, overlooking the country's devastated capital, Port-au-Prince, below in the valley. 'Benatide's school has shut down.

'We didn't have enough food to put on the table for everyone. It was bad in Haiti before the earthquake - now it's far worse. I let her go because I hoped that one day she would do well and come back and help the family.'

She clasps the hands of her other children, Alain, 18, and daughter, Carline, 21, as we talk of Benatide, who is now living at the international SOS children's refuge 20 miles away from her family's village of Calebasse.

She was taken there by Haitian police the Friday before last, just after she and 32 other children - including 19 from her village - were discovered being spirited out of the country by the Baptists from churches in Idaho, Utah and Texas.

On Thursday, the five men and five women Baptists, led by a 40-year-old Idaho businesswoman called Laura Silsby, were charged with child abduction and criminal conspiracy. If convicted, they face lengthy terms in a Haitian prison.

Benatide Poulime, 12, is one of the
Haiti 'orphans' taken by a group of baptists

Meanwhile, the children remain at the refuge - and have not been returned to their homes while an investigation goes on into their parents' decision to give them up.

The authorities, growing increasingly alarmed at the numbers of Haitian children disappearing overseas, want to find out if they were coerced into handing them over or did so willingly.

Since the earthquake on January 12, 300 children have been given to new families in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands. More adoptions are in the pipeline, many arranged by orphanages in Haiti. It is estimated that 7,000 children could leave the country over the next year. 

In many of the cases, the adoptive parents have not met the children before choosing them - they have simply picked them from photographs.

To speed up the adoptions, the White House has approved a fast-tracking system to relieve Haiti's orphanages, which are overflowing with parentless and lost children since the earthquake.

Laura Silsby, left, and Charisa Coulter, pictured \
after they were arrested trying to cross into the
Dominican Republic with a busload of 33 children

Once children arrive in America and are introduced to their family at the airport, they are taken to special centres where lawyers are on hand to complete adoption papers in a process that can take just half an hour.

And, of course, there is no shortage of youngsters available. It is estimated that 300,000 children in Haiti lost one parent, or both, in the earthquake.

A large number of Haiti orphanages were also destroyed, leaving a shortage of beds for orphans who now wander the streets in the devastated city, adding pressure to ramp up the foreign adoptions. To increase the problem, plenty of parents like Adrienne believe sending their children abroad from one of poorest countries in the world is the best gift they can give.

Meanwhile, child traffickers have begun to operate in Port-au-Prince. They are plucking children from the streets or smuggling them out of orphanages, before offering them to foreigners for as little as £65.

Haitian social workers and international aid organisations fear that many will be sold into paedophile rings in Europe and America, or be traded into domestic slavery in the third world.

The result of all this is that Haiti is haemorrhaging its young. It is a sad postscript to the tragedy, in which 200,000 people were killed as houses, supermarkets and entire shopping streets crumbled to the ground.

Thousands upon thousands of those made homeless are still living in tented towns in the city, including one in the garden of the presidential palace.

Yet despite the new vulnerability of these children, Heather Paul, the international head of the charity SOS Children's Villages, which runs the refuge now caring for Benatide, says foreign adoptions should be only a last resort when 'every effort has been made to reunite a child with relatives or provide suitable care in Haiti'.

She added: 'Sometimes Americans think that children are better off in a middle-class environment than being with their own family because they are impoverished. I don't believe that. Children love their own families.'

That is certainly the case with Benatide. When I met her at the refuge, she whispered to me: 'I want to go home. Please tell them to come and get me.' After all, this family has been through a lot together.

When the earthquake struck, they ran in horror from their house and scrambled up the steep path to the main road that leads to Port-au-Prince. There, they watched as buildings all over Calebasse began to crumble.

Seven of the 33 children taken by the missionaries. Authorities
believe none of the children were in fact orphans

Only later, when it had got dark, did the Poulime family dare walk back down to see the damage. The kitchen and the bedrooms had all disappeared. A crack six inches wide snaked down the wall at the front. The tin roof had lifted off and only one room was left intact.

However, Benatide's family got on with their lives. That was until ten days later when the U.S. Baptists arrived at Calebasse and began knocking on doors. They handed out flyers saying they wanted to 'help children who have lost their mother and father in the earthquake or have no one to love and care for them'.

The flyers said, inaccurately, that the group had the Haitian government's permission to take 100 children abroad to the Dominican Republic, which shares a border with Haiti.

They said they had an orphanage in a former seaside hotel where the children would have a school, football pitch and even a swimming pool.

Laura Silsby, who set up a U.S. charity called New Life Children's Refuge to help Haitian children the instant the disaster struck, has said from her prison cell in Haiti that adoption was not in her mind when she trawled the earthquake zone for children.

She says she intended to help 'only those children that needed us most, that had lost either both their mother and father, or had lost one of their parents and the other had abandoned them'.

But, revealingly, the mission statement of her New Life organisation specifically says its purpose was to get Haitian children for adoption in the U.S.. Some parents of the 33 children were told that living in the Dominican Republic would be a first step towards their offspring going to new families in America.

Furthermore, far from being orphans, the Mail has been told that none of the 33 children are parentless or abandoned. All of them have a mother or father - often both, including Benatide, whose farmer father is working elsewhere in Haiti, but returns home to visit the family.

Whatever the Baptist group's exact motives, one of their persuasive flyers ended up with Adrienne Poulime.

'It made me want the best for the children. Alain and Carline were too old to go - that meant it had to be Benatide. We talked about it in the family for about a week. Then I told the Baptists I wanted her name put on their list. I explained it to Benatide and she was very excited.'

So on the Thursday before last, she walked to the waiting bus with her daughter. Benatide had only the clothes she was wearing. Her seven-year-old cousin Alantina was also on the bus. With her hand in her pocket, Benatide held on to a piece of paper on which her brother Alain had written his mobile phone number.

In front of Benatide on the bus were the daughters of Lely Laurentus - Soraya, four, and Leila, five, who had grown up in Calebasse, too.

The earthquake had left the family homeless, and Lely thought this was a chance to give them a new start. He admits the two girls were too young to understand what was happening.

But, he says, solemnly: 'I didn't want them to suffer anymore. I didn't pack any of their things, not even their teddy bears. The American woman said she had enough clothes, toys and snacks for the children. I trusted her because she said they were going to a better place. My last words to my children were: "Please remember me."'

As the bus moved away, one little girl, ten-year-old Loundiny Jovan, was near to tears. She called out to her mother Melanie through the window: 'Bye-bye and please pray for me.' Then they were gone.

It was 24 hours later, the Friday before last, that the Poulime family heard on the radio that a busload of Haitian children had been stopped at the border. It turned out the Baptists had no documentation for the children and had breached an order that children going overseas for adoption must receive written permission from the prime minister.

Next morning, Benatide rang her brother Alain. She said three police vans had picked the children up from the border and driven them back to Port-au-Prince, where she had spent the night at the SOS village.

This week Georg Willeit, an SOS worker who welcomed the children there, said they are emotionally traumatised from their experience.

One boy has told staff he will never go back to his mother because she gave him away. Another girl talks repeatedly about the bus journey, before bursting into tears. As for Benatide, a lot of the time she stays silent and deep in thought. Every day, she begs to make a call to her brother.

How long it will take her and the others to recover, no one knows. As Mr Willeit says: 'The children must be made to feel safe again. They need a routine with care and attention given to them. They know they were given away by their mothers or fathers.

'They will not forget that for a long time, if ever. They should grow up in Haiti knowing their own roots and customs with family members around. They ought not be sent to live in another country.'

Of course, not everyone would agree with him. The arrested Baptists refuse to admit they did anything wrong.

Laura Silsby, who runs a personal shopping company and has a chequered financial history, is scheduled to appear in front of a U.S. judge in an unfair dismissal case involving one of her former employees this week. But she will not make that date, as she remains locked up in a squalid, mosquito-ridden jail on the island until the case against her, and her fellow Baptists, is heard.

The situation is viewed so seriously by the Americans that former President Bill Clinton, now a United Nations special envoy, has arrived in Haiti to negotiate a solution.

Most of the Baptists charged worship at the Central Valley Church in Meridian, Idaho, where the pastor Clint Henry says their motives were 'upright and pure'.

Many religious organisations are at work in Haiti, including many fundamental Christian ministries such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, run by the Mormons, who have paid for flights to airlift children from Port-au-Prince to America.

Roman Catholic churches have also taken Haitian children - some toddlers in nappies - to the U.S..

Up to 300,000 children are believed to have been orphaned by the Haiti quake

They are feeding an insatiable demand for children from white American families with a conservative Christian outlook. The U.S. churches operate hand-in-hand with hundreds of Haiti orphanages, many of which are run by like-minded pastors. The deal is simple: the orphanages provide the children, and the churches provide the parents.

The result is that the vast majority of Haitian children are going to families in Bible-belt states. The phenomenon has led to extraordinary scenes at Miami airport, which is where many first meet the children.

The adoptive parents start screaming, then hugging, kissing and crying over their new children, who often look bewildered as they are handed Mickey Mouse dolls and bags of popcorn as welcome presents.

With so many children involved, things go wrong. After one airlift to Miami, five children were traumatised when no parents turned up to meet them. And in another case, a threeyearold boy was left in tears after his adoptive parents changed their mind at the last minute about having him. He is now in the care of American social services.

Many think the real purpose of the fundamentalists' involvement in the huge-scale adoptions is religious conversion. Some families have taken four or five children.

Certainly, the literature of His House, a large Christian orphanage in Miami which is coordinating adoptions, says it aims to turn children into 'Christ-like beings'.

Others question whether black children from a Caribbean island should be adopted at all by white parents who know little about the children's culture and cannot speak their languages, French and Creole.

Many predict there will be enormous difficulties within the 'ready-made' families as time goes on, even though many Haitian children have the same religious background.

But Iris Marrero, the director of His House in Miami, which at 600 miles away is the closest point in America to Haiti, insists there is nothing sinister about the adoptions.

Staff at His House have matched 150 Haitian children to American families in the past two weeks. One night, a plane arrived from Port-au-Prince at midnight in Miami and all 90 children on board had been formally adopted by 5.30am. 'I pray that their families will love them for ever,' Mrs Marrero told the Mail earnestly.

As for Benatide, her future is yet to be decided. With the other 32 children, she is now in limbo at the SOS refuge.

SOS Children's Village www.soschildren.org

Adrienne is unrepentant about giving her daughter away. When I ask her if she would do it again, she answers quickly in a quiet voice: 'Yes, of course, and so would you if your child lived in Haiti.'

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

CONYERS Statement On FBI Letter To Congress

Washington, DC – House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) today released the following statement:

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Connyers, Jr.

“There has already been a lengthy and thorough investigation into Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email server.  Nothing in today’s letter suggests that the FBI or the Department of Justice will reach a different conclusion than the one they reached months ago, when they decided criminal prosecution was unwarranted.  

“Any inference or conclusion to the contrary would be completely speculative and unjustified.  In fact, the press has already reported that the emails in question did not come from the Secretary’s server—and were not withheld from investigators by Secretary Clinton or her campaign.

“Donald Trump and his allies seem to put their faith in the integrity of the FBI only when it serves their political purposes.  I would expect that this investigation will continue to be impartial, and that this additional step—taken only in an abundance of caution—will further clear Secretary Clinton of any wrongdoing.”

FBI Director James Comey Letter To Congressional Committees On Secretary Hillary Clinton's Email Server 10.... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

How The U.S. Is Selling Off Child Poverty To Foreign Investors

Some time ago, I was asked to look into what we call the "Million Dollar Green Card".

Blow Out Sale Starts At $500K

In short, if you invest a whole bunch of money which creates alot of jobs, you can become an American citizen.

Yes, of course the EB-5 program is a bit more nuanced than this, but you get the picture that the "rich man immigration program" may have a few flaws which are being addressed.

But, then, I deeply inhaled and realized something was afoul.

The EB-5 is a foreign investment program which "targets", supposedly, economically distressed communities.

It was the word, "target" (a code word for "The Poors") that triggered me to review my issues with social impact bonding.

Private Financing of Social Services

Privitization of Social Welfare Hits Wall Street

Privatization of Child Welfare Show Big Investment Losses for Christians and Children

Privatization of Chattel and Services In A Global Economy


For those of you who will not take the time to learn about social impact bonding through the links I have provided, allow me to sum it up with the quickness.

They want the Social Security Trust Fund, really, really badly and plan on doing it by generating targeted populations called "The Poors".

It is called privatization and it was perfected through child welfare programs.

See, in child welfare programs, everything is a secret, protected with privacy laws, arcane recordkeeping systems, and, as everyone should know by now...say it with me..."you cannot audit God."

That is correct, no audits nor oversight, where rampant fraud is but a bit of a monetary civil infraction.

So, now, we have foreign national interests investing in child welfare programs for the purposes of reaping a bountiful return through social impact bonds, while jumping ahead of everyone else to get a green card and grabbing up swaths of land to substantially impact the vote through gerrymandering.

Stay tuned.  I have much more to say.

GAO Immigrant Investor Program: Progress Made to Detect and Prevent Fraud, but Additional Actions Could Fur... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Will The Lumos Foundation Push Into Global Child Welfare Include The U.S.?

The recent illumination of the Clinton Global Initiative and its child welfare programs in Haiti and

The Lumos Foundation

 Africa, along with the Foundation's move to restructure, has piqued my interest into a foreshadowing of nonprofit oversight.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is also demonstrating an interest in addressing the issues surrounding child welfare, but if it is willing to deal with the U.S. child welfare system, is another story which has yet to be written.

If the Lumos Foundation can take on such a daunting task as to end the orphanage system in Haiti, where there are plans to close at least 150 of such institutions, then, one can only hope that this type of action can be imported to address similar ills right here in our own backyard in how we deal with children in poverty.

The 'similar ills' of which I refer to in the U.S. child welfare system deal with revenue maximization schemes, lack of oversight, devoid of civil rights, codification of poverty as abuse and neglect, and the omission of reunification, termination and reinstatement of parental rights.

Think about it:  If foster care wouldn't be good enough for your child or a child you love, why would it be good enough for a child in the U.S.?

Stay tuned.

Ten Years Later: Lumos Foundation’s Push into Global Child Welfare

Think about it: If an orphanage wouldn’t be good enough for your child or a child you love, why would it be good enough for a child in Haiti, or anywhere else in the world?

This question is at the center of the work Lumos, the nonprofit started by J.K. Rowling in 2005, has been doing for over a decade. Named for the light-giving spell featured in the Harry Potter books, Lumos works to redirect the care of disadvantaged children away from orphanages and toward more supportive settings with their families or in the community.

Through advocacy, coalition-building and on-the-ground implementation of changes to the care provided for children without families, Lumos is helping to establish new approaches to global child welfare. These new approaches include reunifying institutionalized children with their extended families and providing more support to those families to remain together, and creating healthier community-based placements for children whose parents are truly not able to care for them.

As we reported last September, five months after Lumos officially opened its U.S. office in April 2015, the goal is to end the institutionalization of children by 2050. It’s an ambitious goal, and one the organization has already made steady progress on, moving forward with strategies on several fronts. Recently I caught up with Georgette Mulheir, CEO of Lumos, to find out how progress is going.

In Haiti this work is particularly needed; poverty is high, and Mulheir said others warned them work there would be very difficult.

“People told us not to go to Haiti,” said Mulheir, which gave Lumos all the more reason to invest its time, resources and expertise there. Over 32,000 children reside in orphanages in Haiti; so far, Lumos has begun work with two institutions to move children into families and communities.

“We’ve got lots of really well-intentioned but misguided people who are putting money into orphanages in Haiti and what we want them to do is not to stop supporting Haiti, but to look at whether they can do something different with their financial and human resources,” Mulheir said.

“Could they be helping to do economic strengthening with those families so those families can keep their children?”

Lumos has been meeting with the government of Haiti, which has now established a national action plan to get children out of institutions and to establish community-based services.

Mulheir emphasized the importance of alliances in ending the practice of putting kids into orphanages. She sits on the governing council of the Global Alliance for Children (GAC), an organization that mobilizes targeted investments in childhood as a core component of a nation’s social and economic progress. GAC has been a major player in bringing together the resources and helping to collaborate on this work, she said.

About to visit Haiti, Mulheir expects to meet with a number of individuals and groups, including staff from the Clinton Foundation, to talk about ways in which their strategic agendas may intersect.

The Clinton Foundation began work in the island nations several years ago, and is now making a bigger push with its climate and women’s empowerment agenda there by launching the Women in Island Leadership Network. The network brings together young leaders in the STEM fields in the island nations, and helps them mentor and build skills to rise in leadership roles.

Mulheir has been impressed with the warm reception Lumos has received from U.S. nonprofits and foundations. She pointed to the Annie E. Casey Foundation in particular, which Lumos has met with to discuss strategy and learn from its “groundbreaking strategies for how to help local government officials change their policies.”

Another significant piece of Lumos’ strategy in coming to the United States involves forming alliances with religious organizations that support orphanages, and helping them to fund alternatives. Much of the funding of orphanages in the Caribbean comes from the evangelical Christian church community, and so Lumos is working with faith-based organizations–including the Faith to Action Initiative and the Christian Alliance for Orphans–and is also having discussions with Catholic Relief Services. Mulheir said one of the goals is to “get very senior members of different churches around the world to highlight this issue and make sure their congregations are aware that the best of intentions in orphanages are not going to result in the best of outcomes.”

“A century ago, the U.S. was challenging the orphanage model,” Mulheir said. “Western Europe got rid of this system decades ago,” she added. “But now we’re exporting this outdated model to other countries.”

Another key strategy that Lumos is using to end orphanages involves getting the European Union to change its funding regulations. The European Union had been spending money on renovating institutions that served as orphanages when Lumos began advocacy about six years ago to get them to end that work and invest in better options for kids.

“Now it’s a very high priority for the EU,” Mulheir said. As of January 2015, the EU is prohibited from spending EU money on the renovation of institutions, and instead the EU is investing in community-based care.

Also high on the strategic agenda for Lumos are the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, which, despite their promise of leaving no one behind, do not include children in institutional care, or children without families. Mulheir said Lumos is continuing to advocate for data collection on children without families, since without any effort to count these children, there is no way to measure their progress on health and education or other outcomes.

Within the decade since its founding, Lumos has helped guide a historic shift away from orphanages and toward healthier living situations for vulnerable children. As the organization connects more with philanthropy’s power brokers in the U.S., and expands into Latin and Caribbean regions, it continues to do systems-level advocacy and cross-sector collaborative work to change the way children without families are treated, and raise the bar for providing quality care for the most vulnerable children across the globe.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©