At Forget Me Not Australia, we are driven by a singular purpose: to end child trafficking into orphanages and halt the demand for ‘orphans.’ We achieve this through powerful grassroots education and empowerment programs, currently active in Nepal and Uganda.
Our holistic, child-focused approach gives families every opportunity to stay together and build self-reliance. We work collaboratively to build brighter futures for children through comprehensive healthcare, quality education, and robust family support.
We currently focus our efforts in these 5 key areas:
We currently focus our efforts in these 5 key areas:
Prevention: Keeping Families Together
We fundamentally believe every child belongs in a family. By providing essential support, we empower families to stay together, ensuring children have significantly brighter futures. Our child-focused work supports families in becoming self-sustaining, allowing their children to fully embrace the magical world of education.
Our scholarship programs equip families and children with the skills and knowledge to enrol in state-schools, igniting a lifelong love of learning and encouraging immersion in every magnificent educational opportunity. Children are given countless opportunities to experience new things and dream bigger dreams.
When children are unable to live with their parents, kinship care offers profound lifelong benefits, allowing them to grow up in the loving care of family members who believe in them. Our Nanna Project specifically helps grandmothers raise their grandchildren by providing financial assistance for school-related costs, mentoring, and individual career counselling. Our focus remains firmly on self-sustainability through health, education, livelihood, and endless possibility.
We also fortify families through our Home for Life program, encouraging brighter futures for children and young people who would otherwise be at high risk of trafficking, slavery, or worse.
We regularly receive urgent requests to manage the complex process of rescuing children from orphanages, including transit care, meticulous family tracing, and sensitive reunification.
Our commitment to action was starkly demonstrated in November 2009, when Forget Me Not was alerted to the dire plight of starving children in a Ugandan children’s home, desperately needing medical attention and paid school fees. We took immediate action, collaborating closely with the Ministry of Gender, Welfare and Social Labour to safely remove the children. During this process, we uncovered a shocking truth: these children were victims of child trafficking. Armed with this devastating information, we embarked on the painstaking journey of finding the family of each child.
This experience led to a thorough investigation of all children in our care in Nepal, where we tragically uncovered similar patterns of child trafficking. For over a decade now, we have worked tirelessly in Nepal to trace the families of every child under our care, strengthening critical relationships with government, non-government organisations, social welfare bodies, and businesses.
Our highly skilled team boasts deep expertise in family tracing, reunification, monitoring, prevention, and youth empowerment. Since 2015, our Change Agent Program has empowered and mentored local individuals from rural and remote villages to raise crucial awareness with families and communities about child rights, the dangers of child trafficking, and the importance of family preservation.
Our dedicated and highly skilled teams trek across diverse landscapes, from remote rural villages to challenging mountainous communities, tirelessly searching for the families of rescued children.
It is heartbreakingly common for families to agree to have their child placed in an orphanage under the false pretence of receiving a “golden opportunity” for education. Often, families are promised the child will return home to liberate them from poverty.
Our team builds trusting relationships with each child, ensuring they feel safe and supported throughout the entire, often emotional, process – from rescue through family tracing, reconnection, and finally, preparation for their return home.
Our transit home serves as a vital haven for children during the reintegration process. Here, children are safe and secure in a loving environment, receiving education, medical care, psychosocial support, nutritious food, and the attention of dedicated caretakers.
Once a family is located, we begin the delicate process of reconnection. Before the initial introduction, we engage with the family to understand the original reasons for the child’s displacement. Only when we are confident the reconnection will not place the child at risk do we facilitate the child meeting their family. We ensure the safety of the child at every step.
Following this initial meeting, families begin to rebuild their relationships through phone calls and visits. A series of careful assessments are conducted over time to determine the optimal case management for each child – whether that is full reunification with their parents, kinship care with other family members, or another safe and supportive alternative.
Our major advocacy initiative is the Change Agent Program, a powerful network that recruits and mentors individuals to help end the global orphanage crisis. These Change Agents are frontline educators, empowering families and communities to understand the profound harms of institutionalisation and better detect and report instances of child trafficking into orphanages.
In Australia, our Change Agent Program mobilises young people to:
Raise vital awareness about child trafficking into ‘orphanages.’
Warn people about the serious consequences of ‘voluntourism’ (volunteering in orphanages).
Raise essential funds to fuel FMN’s critical anti-child trafficking work.
Forget Me Not Co-Founder Kate van Doore is an internationally recognised children’s rights lawyer and a distinguished academic at Griffith Law School, Australia. Kate’s pioneering research rigorously investigates the intersections of child rights, institutionalisation, and trafficking.
Her work has been instrumental in shaping global understanding and policy. In 2017, the trafficking of children into institutions was formally recognised as a form of modern day slavery in the influential Trafficking in Persons Report issued by the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
Building on this momentum, Australia made history in 2018, becoming the first nation in the world to recognise orphanage trafficking as a form of modern slavery, with the passage of the Modern Slavery Bill through the House of Representatives. The Modern Slavery Act officially took effect from 1 January 2019, a landmark achievement informed by critical research.
On the ground in Nepal, our Change Agents recently conducted a comprehensive survey of 1084 households in remote Rhee village. The results highlighted concerning trends, including the prevalence of child marriage where girls marry early in their teenage years, often leading to complications in birth for young mothers. The door-to-door survey with families also revealed that 69 children (including 49 post-quake) had been separated from their families and placed into institutions, hostels, and monasteries in Kathmandu, Dhading, Pokhara, Hetauda, and other districts.
This rigorous research informs our work at every level. We are constantly evaluating our programs and services, driven by direct feedback from the people we serve, to ensure we understand what is truly needed, what we are doing well, and how we can continually improve.
Learn More: Deepen your understanding of the Global Orphanage Crisis and its solutions.
Get Involved: Discover ways to share this critical message and become an advocate.
Support Our Work: Your tax-deductible donation helps us advocate for change and promote family-based care.
Every child deserves a future filled with hope, and you can make that a reality.
Will you be a Seed of Hope Supporter ($50) planting the first seeds of learning, or a Guiding Light Giver ($100) illuminating their path with vital support? Perhaps you’ll be a Nurturing Hand Partner ($250) providing warmth and stability, or a Pathway to Possibility Champion ($500) opening doors to brighter futures. For those who dream bigger, become an Enduring Legacy Visionary ($1,000+) and help us build a lasting foundation of care.
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Learn More: Deepen your understanding of the Global Orphanage Crisis and its solutions.
Get Involved: Discover ways to share this critical message and become an advocate.
Support Our Work: Your tax-deductible donation helps us advocate for change and promote family-based care.