What would lead a person to give up an income of over $130,000 a year for the opportunity to volunteer full time for a nonprofit charity that pays him nothing? Further, besides using up all of his assets to help the charity get started, anything he gets now, like his social security, he tithes 100 of it to the organization! Net personal income = zero.
When you ask Robert Miller what he expects to get in return for his commitment of money, time and effort, his response is, “This goal of this project is to help orphans. I have seen in my travels around the world, many people who exploit orphans. They force the children to work and to beg and often abuse them when they don’t bring back enough money. It is our responsibility as adults to help orphans, not benefit from using them. For this reason, I refuse to accept money for my work in helping orphans.”
Mr. Miller has conceded that in exchange for the 12 to 16 hours a day that he works on the nonprofit’s Families for Orphans™ project, the nonprofit can provide food, shelter and basic medical help for him, but he will not take a salary for his work.
The project to which he has committed his life started in the early 90’s when after adopting two children from an orphanage, he began to see the developmental differences between them and their friends that they would visit who still lived in an institution. Children in a traditional institution do not get the opportunity to lean things by being with parents each day. The little conversations, doing things together, going to the store, working on homework, walks in the park and all the interactions that happen between a parent and child; children in an institution don’t get to benefit from those learning experiences.
As he observed traditional orphanages, he noted that when a child leaves the orphanage at age 18, they often have poor nutrition, little education, few if any job skills, no idea what a family is and they have seen things given to them all of their life. They are not prepared for their future. Now, with the poor economy, donations are down and thus the children receive even less preparation for their lives.
After seeing that, Mr. Miller kept thinking, “how could we have more families for orphans?” When that question bothered him enough, he found the initial team that began the nonprofit charity, Our Family Orphan Communities, Inc, a Colorado nonprofit corporation with a 501(c)3 tax exemption from the IRS.
The mission of the organization is to create economically self sufficient, environmentally conscious, high technology based communities in which orphans are adopted into a family, have real parents and grandparents, receive healthcare, continue their education, learn computer skills, participate in social & recreational activities, receive job skills training and have an opportunity to attend trade school or college so they are better prepared for their and their country’s future.
They will accomplish this by building a community with traditional businesses like aquaculture, greenhouse, dairy, farm crops, butcher, baker and more. These businesses will create jobs, job skills training, food and funds to cover the costs of operating the community. The families living in the community will have financial stability with their jobs and will be able to adopt children from orphanages into their families.
The University of Colorado College of Architecture has created a master plan for the community. The Colorado School of Mines is designing a bio digester to turn community waste into cooking gas, Metro State College is currently working on the computer information network for the community, and more.
Discussions are being held with government officials in both Vietnam and Mexico regarding implementation of the project. Land in Mexico has been donated by a patron who wants to see this project helping the orphans.
If you think this new paradigm of orphan care is a good idea for our world, ask how you can help and donate on their website.
Author Resource:-
I am continuing to learn on my journey of life and finally using my knowledge to help others with the Families for Orphans™ project. Join us at http://www.orphancommunities.org and together we can improve orphan care, ourselves and the world.
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