GHR Foundation's Children in Families funding supports child protection interventions that strengthen families, respond to children without family care and drive further evidence of innovative approaches. ​

GHR envisions a world where all children—especially those without, or at risk of losing, parental care—are living in a stable, positive, long-term family.

In 2015 the Good Shepherd Sisters of Sri Lanka committed to serving children through community-based programming aligned with the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child.  Their decision was fueled by growing appreciation for the importance of family and community for a child’s well-being. 

According to Sister Rasangi, Community Development Program Officer, “…it is our responsibility to empower the families and the entire community [in] creating a better place for our children. Institutional care should be the last solution for child protection.” 

Working carefully, the Good Shepherd sisters have reunited children with their families, reducing the number of children in their residential care institutions from 800 to 480 in 3 years.  

At the same time, the Sisters have started five community-based programs in fishing villages and tea plantations.  Here, the Sisters have helped create child friendly safe spaces where over 1,000 children socialize after school and access services.  They have facilitated support groups for families, but especially for women who play an important role in children’s lives.  Everyone has a role in ensuring children’s safety and well-being within their families.

In this video, see how sisters are supporting efforts to keep children in families.  

In May 2019, GHR partnered with UISG Roma to host the New Approaches to the Institutional Care of Children workshop. Uplifting the central tenets of GHR’s Children in Families work, the workshop explored efforts to move beyond the institutional care of children towards community - and family -based models, that enable children to live healthier, happier lives – well into adulthood.

To that end, illustrating the reach of Catholic-run institutions around the world was a focal point of the convening. GHR partnered with Goodlands, a cartography organization, to create the first global illustrations of Catholic orphanages; hospitals; dispensaries; communities and institutions for individuals with Hansen’s disease (leprosy); matrimonial advice centers; unspecified welfare institutions; re-education centers; homes for the elderly ill, infirm, and handicapped; children’s nurseries; and population from 1980 to  2016.

Mining several decades of data from the Vatican’s Annuarium Statisticum Eccleasiea, cleaning it and joining it to geodata sets of historical and current country boundaries, Goodlands created a significant number of web-based map applications, analyses, and infographics. An example of these is the above time lapse, which illustrates the global spread of Catholic orphanages between 1980 and 2016. These resources have proved crucial in developing strategies to gradually transition from institutional care for children.
​
Founder Molly Burhans, who led the collaboration with GHR on this project, has recently been recognized by the United Nations Environment Program for her groundbreaking work in digitally mapping the land assets of one of the world’s largest land-owners—the Catholic Church. 

​GHR Foundation believes education can transform an individual as it did Gerry Rauenhorst, one of our founders, a first-generation college student and a St. Thomas alum. The beginning of this school year marks a point of pride for GHR, as the inaugural cohort of GHR Fellows begins their first year at the University of St. Thomas.

A partnership between GHR Foundation and the St. Thomas Opus College of Business, the GHR Fellows program is an endowed scholarship for business majors. This highly competitive program is designed to attract future business leaders who exemplify the mission of the university and model GHR values: globally-minded, ethics-oriented changemakers who embody the entrepreneurial spirit, and seek to create enduring value for society.

Ten GHR Fellows have been selected to receive scholarships providing them with full tuition for four years, a fully funded J-Term study abroad experience, curated programming, customized social entrepreneurship opportunities and more. In offering this scholarship, the university will be able to recruit and retain excellent students who might not otherwise have access to such an opportunity. 

Representing a diverse range of backgrounds, the inaugural cohort of GHR Fellows is composed of ten students with outstanding track records, of extraordinary promise, who bring with them a variety of enriching experiences, skills and stories.

Tri Nhan Pham, a first-generation student born in Vietnam and raised in Shakopee, MN, said of the program: “My goal is simple: to leave a legacy that my mom would be proud of. I am ready and excited to take on everything that St. Thomas and the GHR Fellows program has to offer.” 

Learn more about GHR’s support of innovative, high-quality education at Marquette University, St. Catherine University and the University of St. Thomas by visiting our Higher Education Initiative.