Expecto Patronum: Lumos Making a Difference for Children in Moldova

What do you need when the Dementors are getting you down and you can’t coax more than a few sparks out of your wand?

You need a witch or wizard to come and conjure a patronus to repel the Dementors and save you from a terrible fate.

Lumos, the international children’s charity founded by J.K. Rowling, is doing just that for some children in Moldova.

The goal of Lumos is to get children out of institutions and into a family environment.  Lumos estimates that there are 8 million children worldwide currently languishing in orphanages, without the love and individual attention of a family of their own.  You might be surprised to learn that most of these children are not actually orphans.  Some are from ethnic minorities, some disabled, and many from poor families.

Lumos works to reunite these children with their families but in some cases that is not possible.  In Moldova, Lumos donors have funded some small group homes where children can get individualised attention in an environment that more closely resembles a family than the prison-like orphanages they came from.

Hogwarts’ own Professor Flitwick—that is, Warwick Davis—went to visit one of these small group homes.  He shared lunch with the children and, through a translator, asked them some questions about how their lives had been changed by Lumos.  One teen girl spoke poignantly about how the orphanage had stripped her of individuality, with shorn hair, uniforms, and rigid routines.  It sounded remarkably like she had endured a stint in Azkaban, with the Dementors gradually leaching out her will to live.  Now, she said, she had renewed hope:  She was focused on completing her education, having a family of her own someday, and, in her turn, helping others.  The other children there, she said, were like her brothers and sisters.  Kind of reminds one of how Harry found a home at Hogwarts.

Warwick Davis visits Lumos Programmes in Moldova #CareDay from Lumos on Vimeo.