Warner Bros. film Fantastic Beasts

and Where To Find Them

Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

I am so excited that you are excited.

Welcome to Carnegie Hall and...

Thank you!

Welcome to a very what I hope is a very

special evening. More than 25 years ago,

an author put pen to paper and created

one of the most extraordinary stories

that the world has ever seen.

Her astounding imagination continues to

thrill us, it captivates us, it enthrals us,

it moves us, and it leaves us wanting more.

And tonight ladies and gentlemen,

there will be more!

But ten years ago, an unimaginable image

and an unthinkable story propelled her

down a very different path, where the

lives of millions of voices children

would need saving. The author is J.K. Rowling,

and the path is Lumos.

Tonight, we will cast a light on eight million

hidden children around the world

who desperately need our help.

[Narrated] A child's life is so much more than the

sum of its parts, and the love a family

brings hold everything together. From the

very beginning, a child thrives on

individual care and attention. The baby

quickly forges a bond with loving

parents, and because of this bond the

brain develops with remarkable speed and

complexity. Within a safe, secure and

stimulating environment, a child gets the

most out of life. In play, education and

friendship, their personalities develop

freely within safe bounds. But this

picture of childhood can be a fragile

one. Conflict and disaster can destroy

the foundations of family life. When

countries suffer the effects of extreme

poverty, the bonds which holds families

together can easily be broken apart. In

these circumstances, families can feel

they have no choice but to place their

child into a so-called orphanage -

especially if the child is disabled, and

needs care the family cannot afford.

Community support alternatives may not

exist. That orphanages do exist

locally may convince desperate parents

that there is no alternative. But once

the child enters an orphanage, a very

different picture of childhood can

emerge. The child must now compete for the

unique attention they crave. A lack of

individual care harms babies, and affects

their infant brains at a critical stage.

Any schooling they receive is no

compensation for the parental love they

are denied, and children can become cut

off from the world. Ill-prepared for life

outside, they have very poor life chances.

And they are much more likely to fall

victim to abuse and crime once they

leave an orphanage.

And we know there are at least eight

million of these children worldwide.But

there is hope, and it lies a very hard

problem.

Eighty percent of children in orphanages

are NOT in fact orphans, but have parents

or extended families who could care for

them, given some support. And by better

channeling existing donations, we can

support these vulnerable children at

home. By directing funds away from

so-called orphanages, we can transform

systems of care. We can establish

community based services, and prevent

these places from ever taking root.

Community-based services are a better

investment for donors, they are more

cost-efficient than residential care and they

reward children and communities in the

long-run.

Placing children into orphanages is a

choice and not a necessity.

It is preventable and reversible. And by

giving communities options in how they

support families, we can change the lives

of millions of children and give them

strong beginnings and the futures they deserve.

so now to hear more about Lumos and it's

life-changing work please welcome to the

stage its founder ladies and gentlemen

the extraordinary J.K. Rowling

thank you thank you very much so here we

are here we are this is a big deal this is

we're playing Carnegie Hall, we are, yes

it's actually my second time it was it

really alright, so in a short while we get to

show these people our little movie

yeah which is exciting and a little bit terrifying

um and we will get onto talking about

that in a little bit

but first the reason we're all here so

we've just seen this film

this is clearly a massive humanitarian issue

and a gigantic undertaking

I wondered why why this issue why is it

so close to your heart

well I think Eddie said it really well in

his introduction

it is the truth is that i saw it and use

a newspaper story about a very small boy

he was seven years old and he was

effectively being kept in a cage and I

was pregnant at the time and I saw this

image in the newspaper and it was such a

shocking image of this child holding onto

wire and screaming that I went to turn

the page i went to turn the page because

it was painful to look at and I felt

very ashamed as i went to the page I

thought no no you have to read the story

and if it's as bad as it looks you gotta

do something about it so I read the

story and it was even worse than it

looked so to cut a very long story short

the next

I I pulled out the young new story which

was all about an institution in the

Czech Republic were very young children

were being kept in appalling conditions

i went home the next day, monday

I started to write letters to anyone I

could think of MPs and MEPs and the

I wrote to the president of the Czech Republic

I wrote to everyone I could think of

and that led me to connecting with

experts in this field and the creation

of Lumos and so there are 8 million

children living in orphanages worldwide

that we know that we know of

see I think what's staggering with what

was amazing to meet my first began

finding out about this if these issues

you think how could eight million

children be going through this and we

don't know but at a very small amount of

thought shows you they are as as you

just said so

voiceless they are literally hidden from

sight so in fact eight million maybe a

conservative estimate there may be more

children who have been taken from

families that we don't know about

because record-keeping tends to be poor

which is one of the problems

and they are institutions and the we're

saying are harmful to children I suppose

I imagine not everyone agrees

absolutely so it is completely

understandable that we and by we I mean

wealthy Westerners we may have an idea

that institutions are kind kind in that

otherwise perhaps the child will be on

the street or the child is alone that's

completely understand what we tend to

have that image in our minds from movies

like Annie the orphanages can be kind of fun!

actually that's not true

even the well-run ones are proven as we

saw in that short film to do

often irreparable harm you will know

because he has it you have a baby now

who is five months five months old yup

and you will know as I know as all of us

who have anything to do with small

children know that they are hard-wired

to demand love they just come out

looking for it because that's what they

need for brain development and as was

shown in this movie we know that

children who are raised in institutions

suffer developmental delays they tend to

be physically stunted they normally have

psychological trauma it is just not what

nature intended for children to be

herded together and not given individual

individual loving care

and this sort of studies and statistics

absolutely so I'm not just saying this

plucking this out of the air to tell you

we have 80 years of research now that

shows very very clearly all the research

agrees that this is very harmful and in

fact Lumos works with scientists in the

field who will who can show you brain

scans showing the difference between a

child that's come from an

institution and a child has been raising

a family as the movie shown with one

large recent study shows that children

who come out of institutions were six

times more likely to have been abused

10 times more likely to enter prostitution

40 times more likely to have a criminal record

and they were 500 times more

likely to kill themselves

so you see we do have this enormous bank

of research telling us that we are

allowing or even inadvertently causing

children to be harmed for me one of the

complicated things get my head round and

I suppose for people in developed

countries like the US or the UK in which

institutionalization is a thing of the past

one of the things we struggle with I

suppose there's this sort of disconnect

in terms of how we view orphanages

I can completely agree i think a

small amount of thought shows us if you

imagine what would happen god forbid

were a terrible natural disaster to hit

New York tonight your everyone i think

would immediatley think what the important

thing is i keep my loved ones close to

we stay together and we get the

support we need to rebuild our business

find ourselves at home when we put

ourselves and our families in that in

that mentally in that position we

understand however what's happening

across the developed world is disaster hits

and families are immediately pulled

apart we'll take those children from you

now imagine that in the wake of the

disaster that people come to you and say

what if you get

that child will get fed only if you give

me that child and that's what we keep

propping up the system and it's causing

a huge amount of damage and so so is

that why families are being torn apart

is there they're sort of why do parents

give them all right exactly

this is that I mean for many people

that's the key questions so when I tell

people eighty percent of these these

children have parents then a an

understandable reaction is what loving

parent could give up their child to one

of these places but we know that there

are three main drivers into institutions

the biggest one the

overwhelming one is poverty so parents

who make themselves literally be starving

are told if you want to feed

that child we will take it to the institution