VK correspondent Tengiz Doguzov asked Zhanna Gasiyeva, the Minister of Labour and Social Development of North Ossetia, about the situation with orphans in the republic.
- Is it true that it’s better to bring up orphans in a foster family?- It is indeed. All researchers agree that it’s much better to send orphans to foster families than to put them in special governmental orphanages. In a foster family children have a better chance to develop properly and grow up as healthy and happy individuals. We do our best to help orphans to find a family. - How sufficient are efforts to prevent orphanhood?
- It’s terrible that a lot of children are becoming orphans when their parents are still alive. We are trying to prevent any problems in families and to help parents to take back into their homes children who were sent to orphanages due to bad care or child abuse. It’s very important to give children a chance to live with their relatives, their real parents. - How are orphans protected by the state?
- Last year we developed a special program aimed at supporting and protecting orphans. Nowadays, such children are supported financially till they finish their education. We also spent a lot of money on buying apartments for grown-up orphans.
- How does the state support families who adopt orphans?
- We do our best to help adoptive parents to raise a child. The most important thing is to prevent them from sending a child back to an orphanage. That is why we pay special attention to the education of future adoptive parents, to their mental training. We have really good achievements, we have no cases of children being sent back to an orphanage for 3 years.
- The Ministry of Labour and Social Development of North Ossetia and the Foundation for Children have launched four special programs. What are they about?
- All these programs aim to support disabled children and orphans.
Interview by Tengiz Doguzov, Vladikavkaz. Exclusively to VK
