OrphanCare, which operates baby hatch centres, said by right, abandoned children should be reintegrated into families as soon as possible.
“We would like to encourage these orphanages to reach out to us and help the children be part of a family again,” its chairman Faizah Mohd Tahir said, adding that every child needed to belong to a family.
Faizah said there were at least 11 baby hatch centres in Malaysia but that only a handful of orphanages worked with them to help abandoned children find proper homes and families.
According to her, some orphanages were reluctant to work with baby hatch centres for fear they would not have enough children to maintain the institutions once they give them up for adoption.
“Some of them are afraid their workers will be out of a job, which will later force them to close down.”
It is believed that many of these homes are well supported by the corporate sector, which enables them to take good care of the orphans there.
However, OrphanCare believes that the children currently residing in orphanages throughout the country can receive better care if they are taken out of these institutions.
Among OrphanCare’s roles is to increase the number of babies and orphans that are adopted each year, putting them in good homes instead of the institutions in which they were placed.
The centre refers to this as “deinstitutionalisation” – the overhauling of the orphanage institution and removal of as many orphans as possible.
OrphanCare board trustee Nor Aishah Osman also said orphanages willing to work with them should not worry about their staff losing their jobs.
“These registered orphanages can in fact be converted into community centres and their staff will be able to continue working there,” said Aishah, adding that such plans could be realised through a collaborative effort with the Social Welfare Department (JKM).
Faizah and Aishah were both speaking at a press conference after the centre’s “open day” programme to celebrate the relocation of its baby hatch from Kampung Tunku to Bukit Gasing here.
The new centre will be better able to cater for the placement of more vulnerable babies and marginalised children with caring families.
OrphanCare is a non-profit non-governmental organisation established in 2008 under the patronage of Sultanah Kalsom of Pahang. In June 2012, it became a foundation.
Besides the new hatch in Bukit Gasing here, OrphanCare operates two others, one in Sungai Petani, Kedah, and another in Johor Bahru.
Since 2009, the centre has saved over 272 abandoned babies.
Out of this figure, 172 babies were adopted by caring families, while another 100 were reintegrated with their biological parents.