JK Rowling urges fans not to give money to orphanages
Harry Potter author JK Rowling has urged her fans not to give money to orphanages.
The writer of the hit children’s series took part in a Facebook Live chat for her charity Lumos, chaired by broadcaster Lauren Laverne, to publicise the plight of the 8 million children around the world who are living in orphanages.
Rowling, who founded the non-profit organisation 10 years ago, said: “All of the research agrees that there’s little you can do worse for a child than put it in an institution.”
She said of people donating money to overseas orphanages: “We want to help children and that’s an honourable and admirable thing. However, you may be contributing towards real harm.”
The author added: “If you take nothing else away tonight, I’d like you to remember this is a solvable problem.
“Eight million children is an unfathomably large number – it’s so hard to really take in what that means, eight million – but we can solve it.”