A Family for Every Child: Kafala, Kinship Care, and Placement Across Three Continents

The war left thousands of children in Gaza without one or both parents. Behind each of those numbers is a child who still needs what every child needs: a bed that is theirs, an adult who knows their name, a place in a family.

Motaz Foundation's child welfare program works on three tracks, always in accordance with international child-protection law and always with the child's best interest as the deciding standard.

Track one: kafala sponsorship

Most orphaned children in Gaza live with surviving relatives — a grandmother, an aunt, an older sibling. Kafala sponsorship connects these kinship households with monthly financial support from sponsors abroad, so that taking in a child never means the household goes hungry. It is the traditional, culturally rooted form of orphan care, and it keeps children in their communities.

Track two: reunification

Many children have close relatives in the EU, the USA, or across the MENA region. Our case workers handle the legal documentation, DNA verification where required, travel coordination, and handover to child-welfare authorities at the destination, so children can join family who are waiting for them.

Track three: guardianship placement

For children with no surviving relatives, and where destination-country legal frameworks allow, we work with licensed child-welfare agencies to arrange long-term guardianship and foster placements with rigorously vetted families. Motaz Foundation does not operate an international adoption pipeline — placements follow the legal processes of each country, with safeguarding checks at every stage.

The first night, she asked if she could call us again tomorrow. She has called every day for a year. Now she just calls us her family.

— A guardianship family in Barcelona

Sponsoring a child through kafala starts at less than a dollar a day — and it means one less child facing the aftermath of war alone.