I once had a gentleman ask me, “What good is a scrapbook to an orphan? Aren’t there other things that are more important?"
He was not the first to express skepticism over the use of a Memory Book by orphaned or vulnerable children living with great losses and need. Most pioneering work or inventions require proof of evidence-based outcomes to validate their usefulness.
After 10 years of distributing 25,000 Memory Books among vulnerable children living across Africa, India, Haiti, Mexico, and America, The Journal of Pediatric Nursing in their July/August 2014 issue has published research evaluating the use Memory Books by orphaned children in South Africa
In 2012, 30 South African orphaned children were interviewed by me and my co-authors, Dr. Kaye Wilson-Anderson and Dr. Barb Braband, related to the use of a Memory Book to preserve and tell their stories.
The preservation of memories through the children's drawings and stories allow for expressing their thoughts and feelings using words and techniques they themselves understand, while the revisiting of those preserved images and memories has the capacity to yield greater understanding, insight, and truthfulness with time and age.
A young Rwandan man expressed feelings of guilt over hiding instead of helping his family as they were viciously murdered. His drawing depicted a small boy hiding from hatchet-wielding men. As he matured, he realized his guilt was misguided, because he was not a formidable force against the murderers, but the small boy in the drawing incapable of saving his family.
It is my hope the evidenced-based outcomes of this research, which explore the use of a Memory Book by children following traumatic events such as orphanhood, will raise awareness to how a simple scrapbook can produce profound results by helping children discover they are unique and special, with a God-given purpose in this world. God can give meaning to the experiences we have lived, giving inspiration and elevating the hopes and dreams of countless others.