ICAF USA

The International Children’s Aid Foundation’s (ICAF) roots were in a humanitarian mission jointly sponsored by the Marlton Rotary Club and Faith Presbyterian Church. When the two volunteers delivered the two-ton shipment of relief supplies to Romania in 1990, they discovered children warehoused in state orphanages in conditions reminiscent of Dickensian times.

They knew immediately that they could not simply fly home and consider the job done.

After Faith Church’s first short-term mission trip two years later, many other people wanted to help. It quickly became a mission project that outgrew a single church or denomination, and so International Children’s Aid Foundation was formed as an independent not-for-profit foundation under Section 501(c)3 of the US Internal Revenue Service code. ICAF now has a branch in the United Kingdom which is independently governed but which coordinates its activities to support our common objectives.

From the outset, ICAF has been a grass-roots organization committed to several norms beyond the formal corporate objectives:

First, we remain an all-volunteer led foundation. We believe service from the heart is both an obligation and a joy.

Second, we believe it is abhorrent for service organizations to spend 20-30 percent of their income on overhead. Our founding charter vowed to never under any circumstances exceed 10 percent, but in reality, ICAF’s administrative expense is almost zero. We have NO paid staff (other then those we employ in Romania), NO office rents, no phone bills. Even the printing, telephone calls, medical supplies—and this Web site—were donated by caring individuals and companies. It is a point of enormous pride that allows us to point to every dollar donors give and know that 100 cents will go to where it was intended.

Today, International Children’s Aid Foundation has a clearly-defined focus on our mission. We provide services to the poorest and neediest areas which are not served by any other humanitarian organization. We know our strengths and focus on them as follows:

· Bright Beginnings is our "flagship" program which teaches early-childhood development skills to children aged 0-6 in State orphanages in Transylvania, Romania. If you would like more information about the Bright Beginnings program, please click here.

· ICAF’s Medical Ministry has two parts. Volunteers across the USA collect surplus medicines, or medical equipment which is being replaced by more modern models, from doctors and hospitals. We then ship these to Romania (we negotiated free shipping, which saves us $1.10 per pound) where the equipment is considered state of the art, and where the medications fill a huge void in the supply chain. We also take medical professionals on our mission teams—at their own expense—to both teach Romanian doctors the latest surgical techniques and to provide hands-on medical care in remote villages which have no doctors. In 1999, ICAF will establish its own year-round free clinic in Criscior, Romania—staffed entirely by volunteer doctors and supplied by us with donated equipment and medicines. If you would like more information about joining a medical mission team, or about donating medical supplies & equipment, please click here.

· Our support for Orphaned children extends to both those in the Bright Beginnings program in the state orphanages and to the children in our Emanuel Christian orphanage. These kids have been rescued from awful situations and now live in a family setting in a large private home. Our support, which comes primarily from people who sponsor a child for $35 per month, provides all their food, clothing, school and housing needs. Our mission teams stay at the Emanuel site and spend a lot of time playing with and caring for the children. If you would like more information about sponsoring a child, please click here.

· Construction has always been a part of what ICAF does. After one of our early translators founded Habitat for Humanity in Romania, we took the first construction team to that country and will return in 1999 with volunteers to help blitz-build 10 homes in two weeks. Our mission team volunteers also have helped build a four-storey free clinic, another Christian orphanage, have repaired homes for the impoverished elderly and are currently building an extension to the Emanuel orphanage. If you would like to help support our construction efforts, or come join a building team mission trip, please click here.

· ICAF’s Short-Term Mission Teams do all of the above. In as little as a week, volunteers aged from 11 to 83 have shared their love with the children, come home with sore muscles—and huge smiles—from the construction, preached the gospel, shared their faith, and taken their professional expertise in such areas as medicine and teaching. Some people have written a check to pay for their trip on the spot. Others raised support through friends and church members who sent in numerous tiny sponsorship gifts. No matter how they got there, everybody goes through ICAF’s training meetings and is able to make a contribution. If you are interested in joining a future mission trip, please click here.

Where does the money come from?

ICAF receives no government support. Every program is funded by caring private individuals, church mission budgets, corporate, and foundation grants. We also have occasional fund-raising events.

You can help in the following ways:

· As a monthly sponsor of a Bright Beginnings educator or Emanuel orphan.

· By making a gift of money or stock.

· By introducing ICAF’s work to your church, foundation, or corporate benevolence decision makers.

· By donating goods and services, such as printing, medical supplies, frequent flyer miles, etc.

· By participating in one of our short-term mission trips.

However you support us financially, we ask for your prayer support: that the work started just nine years ago by two volunteers will continue to succeed and make real differences in the lives of everyone it touches.

Our Mission Statement

International Children’s Aid Foundation is a non-denominational humanitarian organization, founded by Christians who believe in Christ’s command to take His message into the world. We fulfill this through two primary missions, directed toward children and medical needs, as described in the following objectives.

Object One: To provide for the health, education, and development of abandoned and orphaned children.

Explanatory statement: International Children’s Aid Foundation (ICAF) currently focuses its work in Romania. We fulfill this first objective by:

· Operating the Bright Beginnings early-childhood education program which was developed by our volunteer child psychologists and therapists. This unique program hires local Romanian educators whom we train in the early-childhood development skills so vital to any child, yet which are unknown in Romania. Then, at no cost to the state orphanages, we place the educators in these institutions where they teach self esteem, nurture, non-aggression, psychological and academic developmental skills to the orphans aged birth to five. We currently have 23 educators in five orphanages, and plan to expand the Bright Beginnings program to 225 educators in 50 orphanages within five years.

· Supporting and building Christian-inspired family-group homes for orphans.

· To address the problem of orphans who cannot find employment once they leave school, we have in our vision statement the Bright Futures program. Bright Futures will teach vocational skills, such as computer competencies, to teenagers.

Object Two: To provide a medical ministry to developing countries.

Explanatory statement: ICAF secures surplus medications and medical equipment and gives it to qualified doctors, clinics, and hospitals which have a need for, but no access to, to such critical supplies. ICAF also encourages healthcare professionals to participate (at their own expense) in our medical mission trips where they can offer on-site clinics in remote villages with no medical resources and also train local practitioners in the cities. International Children’s Aid Foundation has helped build and equip free clinics, and will continue to do so as the needs arise and our resources permit.