About Orphans International

Worldwide

Introduction

Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW) was founded by Jim Luce in 1999 as a response to the global crisis facing orphaned children. Inspired by his own adopted son Mathew and encouraged by his child psychologist mother, Jim first established a network of locally incorporated homes to house and educate orphaned children though traditional ‘full-care.’ The primary aim was Raising Global Citizens.

In 2004, after the Tsunami in Sri Lanka and Indonesia and Hurricane Jeanne in Haiti, OIWW began to provide ‘family-care’ services – providing resources and support to keep orphaned children in their
own extended families, allowing the families to remain intact. Since 2008, OIWW has continued to allow its original children to ‘age out,’ while beginning additional family-care services for the orphans of new disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti. Jim Luce spoke on “Ending Orphanages Globally” at the OIWW World Congress IV at N.Y.U. Medical School in 2008 and that became the new mantra of the organization – to move the world’s 163 million orphaned children into their own extended families whenever and wherever possible.

Through family-care, OIWW arranges for donors to provide on-going, monthly stipends for the financial, health and educational support to the orphaned children in its care. OIWW also provides school oversight, after-school tutoring, enrichment programs, health checkups, and regular monitoring of the child’s well-being.

OIWW believes the greatest number of kids can be served when neighbors, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are provided with the means to care for orphaned children after a crisis has passed. This
plan for orphans’ care requires intensive work by OIWW’s local staff, dedicated volunteer teachers and committed donors.

MISSION

The mission of Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW) is to help orphaned or abandoned children grow into solid citizens of the world through a sound structure that is simultaneously Interfaith, because there are many paths up the mountain; Interracial, because there is but one race – the human race; International, because our neighbors are our family; Intergenerational, because there is much to learn from our elders; and Internet-Connected, because the world today is at our fingertips.

All children in the care of Orphans International Worldwide must be given the same love and security that each of our team members would give to their own children. This rule, “Mathew’s Rule,” is named after OIWW founder Jim Luce’s adopted son, Mathew. OIWW has set forth Global Standards for international orphan care, covering both full care and family care of orphaned or abandoned children.