+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
More

J.K. Rowling explains why volunteering at orphanages is often bad for kids.

In 2004, writer J.K. Rowling founded an organization called Lumos to prevent "poor, ethnic minority, or disabled" children from being unfairly placed in orphanages.  

In July 2017, the foundation sent a tweet encouraging followers to think before contributing to institutions that house children en masse.

In response, celebrity chef José Andrés proposed a solution: People should help out in person instead of (or in addition to) donating.

"What donors should do is visit the orphanage and volunteer at them, and if possible adopt," Andrés wrote. "We support one in Haiti and my family volunteers!"

Rowling replied to Andrés from her personal account, explaining how support from wealthy patrons frequently contributes to the abuse suffered by children in orphanages and why, despite good intentions, taking a more active role might not be the answer.

Disability rights advocates praised Rowling's advice.

While not all children are able to live with their family, Rowling says there's a better solution than foisting them on frequently neglectful group homes.

The author believes that working to end the cycles of poverty that force parents into a choice to give their children away rather than supporting the institutions that provide an insufficient (and frequently detrimental) backstop is the best, albeit more complex, solution.

In other words, orphanages address the symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.

An orphanage in Afghanistan. Photo by Noorullah Shirzada/Getty Images.

Several statistics back her up.

A January 2017 study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health found that 80% of children in Cambodian orphanages indeed have at least one living parent.

Additionally, a 2012 analysis concluded that children reared from a young age in substandard group living situations are at a higher risk for neurological, cognitive, and behavioral problems. While well-run institutions do exist, examples of gross abuse and neglect are sadly commonplace. (Warning: Link contains graphic, upsetting images.)

Lumos works to reunite children with their families and channel funds away from orphanages and into local community services that support parents, making it easier for them to raise their own children in the first place.

Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images.

For well-intentioned donors, Rowling believes giving money to institutions that provide little support for children beyond simple housing and a baseline education should be the last resort.

Helping prevent children from going there should be the first.

Badge
The Coca-Cola Company
Recycled Records
Sponsored

Spin your own sustainable music with the Recycled Records beat machine

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

True

You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

Keep ReadingShow less
recycling
Joy

Airbnb host wakes his guest up in the middle of the night so she wouldn't miss the northern lights

Best. Host. Ever.

@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less
nature
Family

Therapist is creating a stir arguing that parents who fight create a toxic home for children

Kids shouldn't have to act like adults.

via Pexels

Parents who just can't stop fighting

Whitney Goodman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, shared a video about kids who grew up in homes where their parents were always fighting, which made many people feel seen. It also started a conversation about who deserves more empathy in the parent-child relationship: the parents or the children.

Goodman is known as the “radically honest” psychotherapist and the author of “Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy.”

"If you grew up in this kind of house, you may have noticed that your family would split off into different alliances or teams to try to manage the material discord. Because the marriage wasn't a good or safe foundation for the family, everybody else had to kind of go and form these new teams,” Goodman explained in an Instagram post.

Keep ReadingShow less
therapists
Science

Conjoined twins with fused brains separated; surgeons practiced for months in virtual reality

Arthur and Bernardo finally get to see each other face to face.

Image by sasint/Canva

Surgeons prepared to separate 3-year-old conjoined twins in Brazil using virtual reality.

The things human beings have figured out how to do boggles the mind sometimes, especially in the realm of medicine.

It wasn't terribly long ago that people with a severe injury had to liquor up, bite a stick, have a body part sewn up or sawed off and hope for the best. (Sorry for the visual, but it's true.) The discoveries of antibiotics and anesthesia alone have completely revolutionized human existence, but we've gone well beyond that with what our best surgeons can accomplish.

Surgeries can range from fairly simple to incredibly complex, but few surgeries are more complicated than separating conjoined twins with combined major organs. That's why the recent surgical separation of conjoined twin boys with fused brains in Brazil is so incredible.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

People fell in love with Marty the cat after his owner wrote a heartbreaking goodbye letter

“I know this is a small tragedy in the grand scheme of the world, but one that I feel acutely knowing that I expected many more years with my friend."

Photo by Juanita Swart on Unsplash

RIP Marty

Tons of people found themselves clicking on the trending hashtag #RIPMarty, expecting to hear tragic news about a celebrity of some sort.

Instead, they learned about Marty the cat, whose owner shared the most heartbreakingly beautiful goodbye letter following his passing. That letter quickly went viral online, leaving folks completely invested Marty's story, not to mention utterly devastated.

Will Menaker, who shared the letter on Twitter, began by sharing how he and Marty first met. Or more accurately, how Marty introduced himself by emerging from under a car and unapologetically following Menaker up to the steps of his apartment seeking pets. Eventually, as the weather began to get colder, Menaker experimented with bringing Marty inside.

“From that moment on I was in love. I wouldn’t say I ‘had’ a cat, but from then on I shared a house with a tuxedo cat I would name Marty,” Menaker wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less
animals
Joy

Ellie the Golden Retriever has gone viral with her adorable mastering of hide-and-seek

There’s no hiding from this good girl.

Photo by Samantha Fortney on Unsplash

Golden Retriever beats her humans at hide-and-seek.

Dogs can sometimes act like doofuses, whether it's eating a sock and doing the poop of shame later or trying to pretend they didn't rifle through the trash while sitting in front of the evidence. Dogs are also pretty smart and hilariously entertaining, especially when you teach them a fun trick, which makes up for their brief lapses in judgment.

A Golden Retriever named Ellie has learned one of the cutest tricks yet: hide-and-seek. In a video posted by The Dodo on Facebook Watch, you see Ellie's parents finding difficult places to hide. And by difficult, I mean opening up the couch storage area and climbing inside to see if the dog's nose can sniff them out.

Ellie's way too smart for their shenanigans and continuously finds each hiding place within seconds. But it's unclear if she's finding her parents or if she's just searching for her favorite toy.

Keep ReadingShow less
dog videos
Education

People can't believe that Detroit is actually east of Atlanta. Here's why it's true.

You'll never see America the same way.

via Pexels, Wikipedia and Wikipedia

Is Atlanta really west of Detroit?

As the old saying goes, “the map is not the territory,” and sometimes maps can be misleading. David Blattman, head of production at Barstool Sports, shared four unbelievable facts about U.S. geography on Twitter, all of which appear to be wildly incorrect, but aren't.

“These geography facts have left me speechless,” Blattman wrote on Twitter.

  • Alaska is the northernmost, westernmost & easternmost state.
  • You can travel north, south, east, or west in Stamford, CT & the next state you hit is NY.
  • Reno is further west than LA.
Keep ReadingShow less
geography
Trending Stories