Refugee children are orphaned more often than children who live in their own country, and the future of an orphaned refugee child is more at risk than that of an orphan who lives in his / her own country. Orphaned refugee children do not have extended family to rely upon for material and emotional report. The only person who can support them is their mother, and widowed refugee women are at a great disadvantage when it comes to providing for their families. Finding work is in most cases not possible. Refugee families who lost their male breadwinners have to rely on assistance from charitable individuals and organizations for survival. Orphan sponsorship programs are therefore of utmost importance for such families. LFT and IRAC run a joint orphan sponsorship program for 210 refugee children in Iran.

Islamic law considers a child less than fifteen years of age who has lost his / her father as an orphan. Funds allocated for orphans have to be spent for the upkeep of children belonging to this group.

However, in today's world children mature later and need more time to acquire the necessary skills to become independent. In most countries, it is now the norm that children study until they at least finish junior high school. They then need a further two to three years to acquire a skill that permits them to support themselves. IRAC's orphan program therefore has two branches: Orphans up to fifteen years of age receive sponsorships coming from funds allocated for orphans, while orphans who are older than fifteen can benefit from a support program using funding from general donations.

Children benefiting from the sponsorship program are encouraged to attend school while children over fifteen and young adults can benefit from the support program under the condition that they attend school, university or skills training programs including courses and unpaid apprenticeships. Their progress is monitored closely and they will be offered the tools of the trade they were learning when training is finished. The aim of the support program is to make its beneficiaries financially independent.

In recognition of the fact that a small number of children or adults do not have the capability to attain self-sufficiency, IRAC includes such families in the long-term support section of its support program. This section also accepts children whose fathers are alive, but deserted them and do not pay any kind of support.

While IRAC's program was originally designed for Iraqi orphans, IRAC now also accepts especially needy Afghan orphans who are introduced by other charitable institutions, notably hospital social workers.

The tables below offer a statistical analysis of the beneficiary groups of the two programs: