Older Orphans Vocational Skills Fund
			We're making an effort to provide some skills training for our older orphans to help them better support themselves once they leave their orphanages.

Older Orphans Vocational Skills Fund

It has always been our policy that orphans must be younger than 18 to be placed on the Orphan's Tear website. One reason for that policy is because we hope that 18-year-olds will be able to support themselves by the time they finish their secondary education. We've also found that people are more likely to sponsor younger children at OrphansTear.org. Older children are usually passed over by potential sponsors. When a sponsored child reaches age 18, we notify the sponsor and discontinue the sponsorship.

But what happens to those older children once they must leave their orphanage? Very few, if any, move on to higher education, but some do go on to Bible School if they can find a sponsor. Most must find a way to support themselves, and so they look for a job. Without skills, however, only the most menial jobs are available---the kind that pay very little. For example, a laborer in Myanmar who works in the fields will earn just one dollar for a ten-hour work day. The same rate is paid to road workers. These hard-working laborers are trapped in grinding poverty all their lives.

For those who have skills, however, there are better jobs. So making an effort to provide some skills training for our older orphans to help them better support themselves once they leave their orphanages.

In Myanmar, we've launched a sewing school through the purchase of 15 treadle sewing machines and by providing a teacher's salary for a year. We've also started special English language classes by paying for two teachers' salaries for a year. And we hope to start classes for computer training, hair dressing and watch repairing. These kinds of skills can open doors of opportunity for our older orphan children that would otherwise remain closed.

We hope to do much more of this kind of thing, not only for our older orphans in Myanmar, but also for our older orphans in Pakistan, India, Tanzania, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Haiti. Many of our orphanage directors have talked to me about this, but I've always explained to them that we just don't have the funding. But now with your help we can turn these orphan's dreams into a reality!

And we also have a plan to keep your gift working for years to come, if you so desire.

We've started a trust fund in order to conservatively and ethically invest any portion of your gift that you designate to that fund. That way, your gift will generate income every year that can be used to pay for the salaries of those who are teaching vocational skills to our older orphans, as well as for other related on-going expenses. It will be your choice to designate your gift (or any percentage) to the Older Orphans' Vocational Skills Fund (to be used as soon as possible) or to the Older Orphans' Vocational Skills Trust Fund (to be invested so that it will provide vocational training every year.)