Orphan

An orphan is a child who has lost both parents. Their parents are either dead or didn't want the child. Some orphans end up in a house called an orphanage. This is where children with no parents live. Many children that live in an orphanage get fostered or adopted by a person or a couple. Some people are called other names as in todays day and age it may be offensive.

Causes

Sometimes parents get sick and die while their child or children are still young, and if no close relatives take care of them, if they cannot or will not do so, they are normally raised in an orphanage. When several children, brothers or sisters are left orphaned they are sometimes split up; one child going to one family or one child going to a foster family while another may stay in the orphanage or foster home.

Sometimes parents may not have jobs or money and abandon their children because they cannot afford to bring them up. The parents may feel that if someone else brings them up they may have a better future in the long run.

Orphan care

In many developing countries orphans are often seen wandering about begging for money and food; many may not be going to school. Not much organised help exists for them in poor countries.

But in richer countries many orphanage, organisations and institutions help the orphans and work to help parents when they are sick or very poor so they do not abandon their children. Organisations such as churches and community services sometimes will assist them.

Orphans in history

Many characters of books and movies have been orphans, such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Annie, Heidi, Batman, and Harry Potter.

Orphan Media

• Orphan in Bangladesh.jpg

  A group of orphaned boys in Bangladesh

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  Orphans by Thomas Kennington, oil on canvas, 1885

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  Emperor Pedro II of Brazil and his sisters Princesses Francisca and Januária wearing mourning clothes after the death of their father Pedro I in 1834. Their mother, Maria Leopoldina, had died a couple of years before, in 1826.

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  Orphan on mother's grave by Uroš Predić in 1888.

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  An Afghan girl at a Kabul, Afghanistan orphanage in January 2002

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  Mother of Peace AIDS orphanage, Zimbabwe (2005)