ORPHANS
“All the children in the world cry in one language.”

If you think that you are unhappy, think about children who have no parents. Did you ever think about what children that have no parents feel? We can’t really understand that, only orphans can understand other orphans. When every day we live in a family, have favorite toys, tasty food and a warm bed to sleep in. It becomes habitual and we don’t notice how lucky we are. But, try to imagine, only for one minute, that you do not have a mom or dad or any relatives. How would you live? What would you be?  There are over 143,000,000 orphans in the world today, according to the UNICEF!

An orphan is a child, who is less than 18 years old, and whose parents are dead or the child’s parents are in absence of parental rights because they are in jail, they are in use of alcohol or drugs, they are sick, they treat their child with cruelness or if the parents alone don’t want the child, their child must be taken to an orphanage.

An orphanage is a place where orphans are raised and cared for. But an orphanage can’t really be called a home. These children have a place to live in and food to eat but they don’t have the most important. They don’t have a family and love from parents. These children don’t need a lot of babysitters and teachers: they need only one mother and her love. Very often orphans are separated from their siblings when given to an orphanage or when they are given to foster parents.

In all historical times there were orphans. But the sad thing is that now there are also social orphans. Social orphans are orphans who have live parents. If a mother for any reason doesn’t want her child, for example if her husband left her while she was pregnant or the family has no money to keep the child or if the child is very sick this mother can write an application with the words:  I refuse to take my child. Those are cruelest words.

Only Russia has over 760,000 orphans but only 5% of those children are real orphans. All the others are orphans with live parents.

There are also orphans who don’t live in orphanages. They live in cellars, in attics, manholes or in old and destroyed houses. These children can be seen every day: on the street, at the railroad stations, at the Metro stations, at the supermarket and market, in McDonald’s:  it is them who finish the half-eaten hamburgers and unfinished Coca Cola’s. The number of these children grows every day.

According, to the United Nations organization there about 100 million of these children today. And by the predictions, there will be about 800 million homeless orphans by 2020. Such countries as Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, India, Kenya and Nepal are in an especially disturbing situation with homeless orphans.

China has a million orphans in a thousand orphanages across the country.

It is very hard to imagine who will homeless orphans be when they grow up. They don’t go to school, can’t read or write, they don’t have anything. When they grow up they usually become alcoholics or addicts, fill up criminal or even commit suicide. Only a very small part of orphans become real citizens and have a happy family.

Every child has a right for a happy childhood with a colorful merry-go-round in the city park, tasty candy, a balloon, a toy car, a favorite book and to see a funny clown at the circus, have a beautiful dream and a happy home to live in. All this children can get only if they live in a family. So, if any family wants to take a child from an orphanage they can, and that would be the best thing for the child. This process is called adoption. But this process very often is very long (3-4 years) and difficult. It is also very expensive. That is why not very many people adopt and many children are still left in orphanages. But if orphans have relatives and they want to care for the children they can.

These are some organizations that help orphans: UNICEF, Majka i dete, WWO, Orphans International Worldwide, Child's Dream, Dravidians Organization International, Coptic Orphans, United Nations and Resala.These organizations care for these children by placing them in orphanages, foster care, children's homes, care centers, or through adoption.

Orphans also face a variety of challenges: illnesses, abduction, mental problems. Ordinary children who have parents and orphans are quite different but also they are the same because of the most important thing. We are both children. Ordinary children have a home, enough food, clothes, toys and have parents and orphans don't. Orphans are also usually very lonely: they have no parents or sometimes even no relatives. These children are nobody's. They are strangers to everybody. Nobody needs them. According to a visit to an orphanage that I went about a month ago they like the same music, sport and toys as us but they don’t have really big wishes and goals because their whole life is filled with loneliness.

Just imagine what it is like to be an orphan and have no parents. Maybe you think that it is really hard to help orphans, maybe you think that to help them you have to be very rich or grown up but that is not true. To help them you need to have only the kindness of your heart. This is how we, ordinary children, can help orphans: We can visit orphanages to spend time with them, teach them something or be friends with them so they would not be so they will not be so lonely anymore. We can donate toys, books, clothes and other things that they need.

The most important thing that we can do is in the future don’t do this to our kids, don’t leave your own children and always take good care of them.

The character from the book by J.M.Barrie that all of you probably know: Peter Pan said that he did not want to grow up. He said that all grownups are pirates. This is why I want to wish to all of us that when we grow up we will not become pirates, first of all for our own children.

 Websites: 

www.wikipedia.com
http://internationaladoptionguide.co.uk/genericPage.jsp?genericPageValue=Facts
http://www.orphansinneed.org/
http://www.wwo.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphanage
http://www.orphanage.org/

Nadia Tokovic 5A

2010-2011 Exhibition Work “Expository Writing Orphans”.