Preventing a Child From Becoming an Orphan Changes Everything

Saigon, 1972. Eighteen years into the Vietnam War.

That’s when it all started for us. Vietnam was overwhelmed with children who had been orphaned by the war. Don and Marilyn Scott, who were relief workers there, founded a nutrition center to keep as many of these orphans alive as possible. At the same time, they asked Pam Larsen, an adoptive parent they knew, to pursue licensing for adoptions in Massachusetts. Many of these children had fathers who were American servicemen and the Scotts knew most of these orphans would have a better life in loving families in the US.

By 1974, our adoption license had been granted and we began placing orphans from Vietnam in the US. This all came to an end when Saigon fell, but as there were so many other countries in the world struggling to handle the number of orphans in their care, it just marked the next stage in our development.

Known as International Adoptions, we soon started building loving families for orphans from South Korea, Colombia and the US. We became Wide Horizons For Children in 1991, and soon started adoptions from China. After 20 years and having placed more than 2,000 orphaned children in their forever families in the US, one thing was clear.

The experience of being an orphan never disappears fully from a child’s soul.

We knew our mission from that point onward was to do everything we could to help prevent a child from becoming an orphan.

OUR APPROACH

Keeping a Family Intact

Building a Family When a Child Has None

OUR WAY

We Are High-Impact and Agile

At Wide Horizons For Children, the verifiable impact of our work at transforming the life of each child and family we help is what matters. We look to expert evaluators to review our program design and monitor our impact continuously. We cease programming that is not performing at the level of our expectations and expand programming that demonstrates true impact for children and families.

Our relentless focus on this has paid off. We are a hugely impactful organization and punch way above our weight — we have transformed the lives of 3,000,000 children and their families beyond all recognition.

• We are agile. We have no stifling bureaucracy to wade through before making decisions. And we have local staff and partners on the ground where we work who can provide immediate and informed help when it’s needed and adapt it to meet changing needs.
• We go deep. With our commitment to the vulnerable children and their families, our staff, our partners. With our work, addressing all facets of their life that hold them back, not just one or two.
• We are experts in serving the most vulnerable children and their families. With almost 50 years of experience, we have touched the lives of over a million people living in crisis around the world.
• We lead with our values. Compassion, transparency, accountability, non-judgement and kindness guide us and we only work with partners who share these values.