Lumos, formerly known as Children’s High Level Group, is an international non-governmental charity founded by the author of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling, which promotes an end to the institutionalisation of children worldwide.
History
In 2004, after seeing an article in The Sunday Times about children being kept in caged beds in institutions, J. K. Rowling felt compelled to address the problem. She said: "I looked at that photograph of the boy in his cage bed and felt he had absolutely no voice. This touched me as nothing else had because I can think of nobody more powerless than a child, perhaps, with a mental or a physical disability, locked away from their family. It was a very shocking realization to me and that's where the whole thing started." As a result, she co-founded the Children’s High Level Group with Emma Nicholson to address the problem of institutionalised and disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe. In 2010, the Children's High Level Group was relaunched as Lumos. The name Lumos comes from a light-giving spell in the Harry Potter books. Lumos and other organisations have worked to encourage the European Commission to establish regulations that state that fundings to EU Member States must be used for community services, not to build or renovate residential institutions. Even before the regulations were passed, as a result of years of advocacy and awareness-raising, this principle of funding supporting 'deinstitutionalization' had already helped divert more than €367 million of EU funding away from institutions towards community services. Lumos works on a global scale, particularly promoting family care and helping authorities to close down institutions and orphanages. It is a member of the Global Alliance for Children, an international grouping of governmental agencies, private foundations and NGOs which are concerned with children's interests. According to a conversation between Lauren Laverne and J. K. Rowling, as of 2016, Lumos has put more than 17,000 children out of institutions. They have set up foster care, small group homes where children live in a family-type situation, and found adoptive parents in the child's community.
Scope
Lumos points out that most children in orphanages and other institutions still have parents, who are usually not able to raise them due to extreme poverty, often caused by natural disasters, wars, discrimination or disability. If local governments were able to provide basic infrastructure, rudimentary living conditions and job opportunities most children could be looked after in their own families. If this is not possible support should be provided to place them in foster or adoptive families or in small group homes. The best-run orphanages are not able to replace a family-like setting where the child can rely on and establish an emotional relationship with one or two caregivers. Lumos gives a number of key factors that do harm to a child raised in an institution: Lumos lists typical institutions that are generally regarded as being not conducive to children:
