Temporary Placements at Bolingo?
Bolingo Village was built to be a forever home for some of the world's most vulnerable children. A place where children who have nothing can gain a family, love, and a place to call home forever. So far, we have given 17 children loving families in Bolingo Village.
This forever home never planned on accepting temporary placements. We intended to only open our doors to children who would be a part of Bolingo Village forever. However, last week, we were contacted by social services and asked to accept a temporary placement of three siblings.
Their parents are facing hard times. They lost their home and had nowhere to go. While they are working toward stability for themselves and their children, they wanted a safe place for their kids to live.
When faced with this choice - we decided to bend the rules and welcome these kids into Bolingo. We did this for three reasons:
We understand no matter where these children go while their parents are getting back on their feet, this is going to be a confusing and traumatizing time for them. We know that coming to Bolingo would be a less disruptive experience than spending this time in an underfunded, understaffed orphanage.
Social services standard procedure, regarding how Bolingo Village gets new children, is that once a child has been placed somewhere, they do not like to move them. Meaning that if these parents aren't able to reclaim their children, and we didn't take them in now, we would not be allowed to welcome them into Bolingo Village.
We had a house that was three kids shy of capacity. The other children had all been together for months and have grown together as a family. We felt that this family welcoming the siblings into their home, even for a short stay, wouldn't interfere with the family unit that had already developed.
All that said, we are happy to welcome these three kiddos to Bolingo Village. While we have not changed our policy, we are ecstatic that our current situation benefits these kids.