In Jennifer Rankin’s article in the Moscow Times, Russia’s struggle with its institutional child care system is addressed as it is one of the highest rates in the world. This social problem that face countless poor families all over the world is no different in Russia as over 371,700 children are growing up in state institutions all over Russia with reasons stemming from families suffering from alcoholism, drug abuse, death, unemployment and other issues. This problem has been constantly rising since the early nineties and the fall of the Soviet Union.
Rankin outlined some attempts by the Russian government in reforming this “out of date and broken system” so that it not only minimizes the number of children sent to these institutions but to serve the children well who are still there. These reforms would have to change in these areas: to raise the awareness of the Russian citizens about the advantages of adopting “their own” children, to raise the percentage of new orphans who will be able to be reunited with their families, improve the psychological and social environment for these children, and to raise the quality of life for these orphans through political changes necessary to offer financial support to make the reforms.
This article has some strong points overall. Rankin provides solid statistics throughout the piece, as well as good examples about how the orphanages have improved over time with improvements in better facilities, toys, and medical care for the children. She also did well on organizing the article into different sections with appropriate headings that made it easy to follow. She also went on a limb and interviewed an anonymous director of an institution who revealed some poor conditions about the orphanage that she is in charge of and some of her struggles in getting proper support from the government and people in charge.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russia-struggles-to-reform-soviet-era-orphanages/455659.html
No comments:
Post a Comment