About us

Romania Without Orphans (ARFO) unites NGOs, churches, companies, public and private persons, all having a single purpose: that each child should benefit from the love, support and safety of belonging to a family

Our hope is that, by working together, we would inspire and equip people “to learn to do right, seek justice and help the oppressed” and, above all, “take care of the orphans”. Among our initiatives we have the Annual Summit, the campaign “We also care”, “Orphan Sunday”, “The Consortium for Instructing in Understanding and Treating Trauma” and the “An unforgettable weekend” project.

More than simply creating a program, AFRO desires to mobilize our society towards caring for children in difficult situations. Our dream, therefore, is that Romania would become a country of people which invest their time, talents and resources in order to care for these children.

Traditional approaches are NOT solving the global orphan crisis

Funders select individual grantees
Organisations work separately and compete
Corporate and government sectors are often disconnected from foundations and non-profits
Measurements and evaluations attempt to isolate a particular organization’s impact
Large-scale change is assumed to depend on scaling organisations

Isolated Impact

Collective impact is a new paradigm. Multiple players in a movement work together to solve complex problems.

Understanding the social problems – and their solutions – arise from the interaction of many organisations within a larger system
Cross-sector alignment with government administrations, non-profit, philanthropic, and corporate sectors as partners
Organisations actively coordinating their actions and sharing lessons learned
Organisations working toward the same goal and tracking the same measure of progress

Collective Impact

ARFO’s values

Jesus Christ - God

God is directly and personally involved in protecting vulnerable children. Our motivation, passion, purpose and approach is based on His love for people, and especially for children in difficult situations. God’s relationship with humankind is defined by adoption. God has adopted us and is a Father to the orphan. He is at the center of the adoption initiative. (Exodus 22:21, 22, Deuteronomy 10:18, Psalm 10:14, Isaiah 58: 5 – 12, Isaiah 1:17, James 1:27, John 3:16, John 1:12, 13)

The child

Each child has intrinsic value and deserves the unconditional right of a holistic development. A child is not primarily a future adult, but a child is first and foremost the unique and precious creation of God.

The church

The Christian community, which reflects God’s sacrificial love, has the mandate to care for the orphan written in its DNA. (James 1:27)

The family

A healthy family is the best context in which a child can develop and grow/flourish. The biological family is the first option in which a child should grow up. But when children lose their first family, the solution is always found in another family.

The movement

We collaborate in bringing together all those who believe in these values in order to see them be embraced by the whole of society and to allow transformation to happen.

Excellency

Unconditional love is not enough. The way we care for children must be guided by knowledge and wisdom. We try to promote excellency in the way we care for children in accordance with Christian principles and the best research, studies and practices available.