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We do not have to travel far from the UK to find that children are put in orphanages not because they are parentless but because parents are not given sufficient support to enable them to raise the children themselves. The report states that 98% of children in residential care in central and Eastern Europe have at least one living parent. Many children are given up by their parents because of lack of economic support but many others, too, are given up as a result of misguided information about treatable health conditions. Paul O’Grady, a Save the Children Ambassador is entirely correct in his assertion that “families around the world should be supported to stay together, and more needs to be done stop children being put into care unnecessarily."
Cleft means 'split' or 'separation'. During early pregnancy separate areas of the face develop individually and then join together. If some parts do not join properly the result is a cleft, the type and severity of which can vary.
Lilyana is tiny for her age – nearly four, but looking two. She lives in an orphanage in Bulgaria, where an estimated third of all babies born with clefts are abandoned by their parents and end up in the care system; usually for life. Good cleft surgery is available in Bulgaria, but many babies are abandoned through plain ignorance. We suspect similar human tragedies are happening in other countries in the region.
Our charity currently employs just one staff member who, as well as coordinating overall activities, is directly involved with country projects and training programmes. All board members are volunteers. The task ahead of us is huge but we have managed to secure funding to cover our core costs for the next two years.
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