MOSCOW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) — World Orphans Day is observed every second Monday of November, and was established following an initiative by the US charity The Stars Foundation.
In 2014, World Orphans Day will be on November 10.
World Orphans Day was established in order to draw attention to the issues that are faced by orphans worldwide. All over the world children become orphaned for a variety of different reasons, including war, poverty and disease.
There are an estimated 153 million orphans worldwide who have either lost one or both parents. Every two seconds a child becomes orphaned somewhere in the world.
In recent years, much attention has been paid to the plight of orphans in Russia. Russia without Orphans aims to help orphans all over the Russian Federation.
In Russia orphans have shelter, food and an education, but this is not enough. Without a loving family their lives will always be incomplete.
Large strides have been made in recent years to improve the situation in foster homes across Russia, with developments in child psychology and pedagogy and increased financing. 2013 has been a landmark year for Russian orphans as their numbers have been massively decreased from 119,000 in 2012 to 93,000 in 2013.
During 2013, the number of prospective adoptive parents increased by 52.1 percent.
During the period from 2009 until 2013 there have been some important positive trends. The number of adoptive parents increased by 72.9 percent, the number of adoptions cancelled decreased by 32.2 percent, the number of orphans registered per year also decreased by 35.6 percent.
In the Kaluga Region and the Republic of Mordovia, all of the children residing in state orphanages were adopted.
On a federal level, several laws have been introduced, which have made the adoption process both easier and quicker and the requirements for foster parents have been outlined.
In Moscow alone, the Department of Social Protection runs 55,000 schools for adoptive parents. All the schools run specialist parenting classes for those who want to adopt an orphan, which since September 2012 are compulsory and free of charge and aim to teach prospective parents basic child psychology and educational methods. The course lasts for 1.5-2 months.
World Orphans Day is observed in order to attract global attention to this acute modern problem. Apart from adopting a child, every person can help by donating money or time to orphan charities.
