Belarus

There are more than 25,000 orphans and vulnerable children growing up without parental care in Belarus. An estimated 7,000 of them live in bleak, faceless institutions, without the love of a family and are largely forgotten.

This is primarily due to poverty which is crippling a third of the nation and placing a huge amount of pressure on families to give up their children and place them in institutions.

We first started working in Belarus in 2000, helping children with no parental care to find love and support with foster parents in Family Type Homes. This prevented 288 children being placed in institutions, but had no impact on those who were already living in them. 

In 2004, a presidential decree called for an end to children’s institutions for school-aged children. We responded by working with the Ministry of Education to close two institutions, and influenced the closure of many more. We set up alternative care for children and secured the Government’s commitment to move away from a childcare system based on institutions to one based on family care.

We are pleased to see progress with the country’s deinstitutionalisation strategy for school-age children, but sadly this commitment does not extend to children under the age of three. Ironically, this is also the age group that is most harmed by institutional care. Our work is therefore heavily focused on finding better solutions for children under the age of three.

We are now working closely with authorities to close one of Belarus’ largest baby institutions. The Gomel Institution is ‘home’ to 200 babies and is a potential ‘home’ to many others whose parents are on the brink of family breakdown and can see no other solutions. We are working to ensure that every child in the institution grows up in the love of a family, and to prevent vulnerable families in the region breaking down and abandoning their children. This includes developing a network of foster carers to care for the children in a family environment, local services to help families at risk cope with the many challenges they face and training childcare professionals to support families to stay together.

Our direct work with children, families and communities is fully grounded in our work at the national level, where we seek deep-rooted changes and challenge the status quo. Conditions in most children’s institutions in Belarus are still inadequate and have a severe effect on children’s development. The quality of care and individual attention babies and young children receive has not improved significantly. We are also vocal about the fact that undertaking cheaper types of ‘reform’, such as breaking down institutional spaces into smaller modules where siblings are grouped together and where home visits are encouraged, is not an appropriate solution.