ORPHANAGE 11 BRAVE CHILD

ORPHANAGE 11 An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or abusive. There may be substance abuse or mental illness in the biological home, or the parent may simply be unwilling to care for the child. The legal responsibility for the support of abandoned children differs from country to country, and within countries. Government-run orphanages have been phased out in most developed countries during the latter half of the 20th century but continue to operate in many other regions internationally. It is now generally accepted that orphanages are detrimental to the emotional wellbeing of children, and government support goes instead towards supporting the family unit.

A few large international charities continue to fund orphanages, but most are still commonly founded by smaller charities and religious groups. Especially in developing countries, orphanages may prey on vulnerable families at risk of breakdown and actively recruit children to ensure continued funding. Orphanages in developing countries are rarely run by the state. However, not all orphanages that are state-run are less corrupted; the Romanian orphanages, like those in Bucharest, were founded due to the soaring population numbers catalysed by dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, who banned abortion and birth control and incentivized procreation in order to increase the Romanian workforce.

Today’s residential institutions for children, also described as congregate care, include group homes, residential child care communities, children’s homes, refuges, rehabilitation centers, night shelters, and youth treatment centers.

ORPHANAGE 11 BRAVE CHILD Research from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) is often cited as demonstrating that residential institutions negatively impact the wellbeing of children. The BEIP selected orphanages in Bucharest, Romania that raised abandoned children in socially and emotionally deprived environments in order to study the changes in development of infants and children after they had been placed with specially trained foster families in the local community. This study demonstrated how the loving attention typically provided to children by their parents or caregivers is pivotal for optimal human development, specifically of the brain; adequate nutrition is not enough. Further research of children who were adopted from institutions in Eastern European countries to the US demonstrated that for every 3.5 months that an infant spent in the institution, they lagged behind their peers in growth by 1 month. Further, a meta-analysis of research on the IQs of children in orphanages found lower IQs among the children in many institutions, but this result was not found in the low-income country setting. Worldwide, residential institutions like orphanages can often be detrimental to the psychological development of affected children. In countries where orphanages are no longer in use, the long-term care of unwarded children by the state has been transitioned to a domestic environment, with an emphasis on replicating a family home. Many of these countries, such as the United States, utilize a system of monetary stipends paid to foster parents to incentivize and subsidize the care of state wards in private homes. A distinction must be made between foster care and adoption, as adoption would remove the child from the care of the state and transfer the legal responsibility for that child’s care to the adoptive parent completely and irrevocably, whereas, in the case of foster care, the child would remain a ward of the state with the foster parent acting only as a caregiver. Orphanages, especially larger ones, have had some well publicised examples of poor care. In large institutions children, but particularly babies, may not receive enough eye contact, physical contact, and stimulation to promote proper physical, social or cognitive development. In the worst cases, orphanages can be dangerous and unregulated places where children are subject to abuse and neglect. Children living in orphanages for prolonged periods get behind in development goals, and have worse mental health. Orphanage children are not included in statistics making it easy to traffic them or abuse them in other ways. There are campaigns to include orphanage children and street children in progress statistics.

ORPHANAGE 11

ORPHANAGE 11 Here are some orphanages in Kolkata and when and who founded them: 

• St. Mary’s Orphanage & Day School: Founded in 1848 by the Congregation of Christian Brothers, this orphanage was originally called the Calcutta Male Orphanage. It was moved to its current location in Dum Dum in 1947. The school offers education from nursery to class 12 through the ICSE/ISC board. 
• Netaji Orphanage: Founded in 1924 by nationalists Chittaranjan Das and Subhas Chandra Bose. 
• SOS Children’s Village: Established in 1977 by the then Governor of West Bengal, Mr. A.L. Dias, and a few social workers. The village was created to provide care for children who became orphaned or homeless after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. 
• Shishu Bhavan: Opened in 1955 by Mother Teresa. 
• Calcutta Muslim Orphanage: Established on September 15, 1892 by Maulvi Abdul Hassan Khan. 
• Samparc Shishu Kendra: A center that provides food, accommodation, education, and future development for 30 children.

ORPHANAGE 11

ORPHANAGE 11 BRAVE CHILD Prior to the establishment of state care for orphans in First World countries, private charities existed to take care of destitute orphans, over time other charities have found other ways to care for children.

• The Orphaned Starfish Foundation is a non-profit organisation based in New York City that focuses on developing vocational schools for orphans, victims of abuse and at-risk youth. It runs fifty computer centers in twenty-five countries, serving over 10,000 children worldwide
• Lumos works to replace institutions with community-based services that provide children with access to health, education, and social care tailored to their individual needs.
• Hope and Homes for Children are working with governments to deinstitutionalize their child care systems.
• Stockwell Home and later Birchington, started by Charles H Spurgeon, is now Spurgeons after the last orphanage closed in 1979. Spurgeons Children’s Charity provides support to vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families across England.
• SOS Children’s Villages is the world’s largest non-governmental, non-denominational child welfare organization that provides loving family homes for orphaned and abandoned children.
• Dr. Barnardo’s Homes are now simply Barnardo’s after closing their last orphanage in 1989.
• OAfrica, previously Orphan Aid Africa, has been working in Ghana since 2002, to get children out of orphanages and into families, in partnership with the government and as the only private implementing partner of the National Plan of Action.
• Joint Council on International Children’s Services is a nonprofit child advocacy organization based in Alexandria, Virginia. It is the largest association of international adoption agencies in America, and in addition to working in 51 countries, advocates for ethical practices in American adoption agencies