Russian Orphan’s Today
In 1994, Russia experienced a historic time of transition from socialist times to a free market economy. One of the areas that suffered from this transition was the orphanage system. According to statistics, there were over 400,000 children in Russian orphanages that year. Over the next decade that number was to double to approximately 800,000 orphans.
Of those, approximately 60% are teenagers today.
As the country has stabilized on many fronts, one of the benefits has been the decrease in the number of children living in institutions and the growth in the number of orphans placed in family settings. In 2006 the Russian government launched a campaign to fight the problem of orphanhood in the country. This effort helped many children to be placed in local families; however this tendency is slowing down while about a hundred thousand social orphans are being identified every year.
For 260,000 children, an orphanage still remains home. Over 60% of these institutionalized children are 12 years old or older and have very little chance to ever experience a healthy and loving family or skills modeled for them to ensure a productive life.
Notable experts in the field agree with our assessments from working with Russian orphans. For instance, Alexander Golovan, former ombudsman in Moscow recently stated, “It’s clear that we won’t place all orphans in families in the near future. It is also obvious that both orphans in the institutions and in foster homes need social support, therefore helping orphans during their transition to independence will be a dire need for our society for many years.”
Another factor that is a concern about older orphans’ well-being is the growing number of orphan teenagers in technical schools. In many tech schools that Nadezhda Fund is working with, there are over 80 orphan children among the student body. While the common ratio of children to adults in orphanage settings are 1/1.5-2, in technical schools this may be 1/50 and more, especially at night time. In addition, the workers in technical schools are not adequately trained to work with orphans. Naturally orphans don’t receive the needed guidance, personal attention, and encouragement which makes their transition to independent life even more difficult.
Another seemingly positive recent change – the significant increase of state financial support – jeopardizes orphans’ success. Unemployment for orphans often exceeds an average salary in the region, the state one time allowance reaches $1000 in some regions. This easily creates a welfare syndrome and leads to chemical dependencies and crime. Orphans Tree believes it as imperative to motivate orphans for better education and careers, encourage them in discovering their areas of competency and applying their talents. Also engaging them in active social position and giving back to the society is a primary goal for Orphan’s Tree.
To achieve our goal of helping these teens integrate successfully into Russian society and avoid becoming negative behavioral statistics, Orphan’s Tree is committed to providing quality programs that will have the greatest influence in the lives of at-risk orphans in today’s Russia.