Harry Potter creator J. K. Rowling has urged her fans to not give money to orphanages.
The mastermind behind the wizarding world of Harry Potter took part in a Facebook Live chat for her charity Lumos to publicise the plight of the eight million children around the world who are living in orphanages. Rowling founded the non-profit organisation 10 years ago.
Speaking during the session, she said “All of the research agrees that there is little you can do worse for a child than put it in an institution”.
“We want to help children and that's an honourable and admirable thing. However, you may be contributing towards real harm”.
She 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”, she said, “We absolutely do need funds but we need to change minds”.
“If we change minds we will change lives”
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Rowling, who also writes under the name of Robert Galbraith, was asked how she managed to keep up with a hectic publishing schedule, which includes the recently-launched West End show Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.
She said, “I have a very supportive family and I never answer emails. I find it makes life a lot easier if you just forget a lot of stuff you're supposed to be doing.
“I tend to prioritise my writing and my children, children normally come first depending on how they're behaving.”she joked.
She also went on to note that no matter how hard she tries, she may never get away from Harry Potter.
"2016 is very wizardy. As completely as I can ever step away from Harry Potter, I really stepped away for about six or seven years ... But Harry Potter has a gravitational pull of its own because the fan base is so strong that I don't think I'll ever be entirely separate from Harry Potter."
