Participants were grouped into three categories: Adera children, biological children and Adera parents. From the 36 Adera children 9 (25%) were boys and the rest 27 (75%) were girls age 10- 16 years. The biological children were 10 to 20 years; 16(44.4%) were boys while 20(55.6%) were girls. In addition, nine Adera parents were interviewed in the study.
Table 1 shows that 10 (27.8%) of the Adera children stayed for one to five years in the present Adera care arrangement, 20 (55.6 %) for six to ten years, and the rest 6 (16.7%) lived for 11 to 16 years; the mean average of stay being 7.53 years. The reasons for getting into an Adera care arrangement were diverse: for 12 (33.3%) of them it was because both or one of their biological parts were deceased, for 15(41.7%) it was poverty, 4 (11.1%) of them needed to secure better educational opportunities, 2 (5.6%) were displaced, and the rest 3 (8.3%) had divorced parents. As it was also noted in previous research, the majority of the children were given Adera to relatives: 10 (27.8%) were living with their grandparents and 22(61.1%) were living with their aunt or uncle. Only 4 (11.1 %) were living with non-relative guardians (neighbors and distant relatives)