ORPHANS AND ORPHANAGES
Sir-The article "Orphanages without Orphans" in The Listener (20/8/48) calls attention to a fact which has been well known’ for years to those in close touch with questions of Child Welfare ebut which has been practically unknown to the general public. Of the 3,000 or 4,009 children in homes and institutions in New Zealand a very small proportion are total orphans. It is not a new situation. An examination of the New Zealand Year Books shows that in 1925 the number of total orphans in orphanages was only about 7 per cent. and it showed a downward tendency to about 5 per cent in 1938, when the system of publishing these statistics was altered. It is now probably not more than 3 per cent. But does not this fact imply a criticism of the Committees and Councils in charge of these orphanages and homes. While commending most heartily their interest in, and work for, the children, should they not have considered it part of their duty to have educated the public on the real (as distinct from the purely financial) needs of the institu-
tions and the social conditions that gave rise to them. One feels that they were content to "cash in" on the sympathy which the pathetic picture of a homeless orphan would evoke and limit their concern to the raising of funds. The daily papers and radios this month are giving publicity to a "Combined Orphanages Appeal" in Christchurch. Yet probably only half a dozen of the 250 childten in the "Combined Orphanages" are total orphans. I write to advocate that all committees, councils, etc., of children’s homes maintain, as well as management duties and money-raising organisations, a research department to study the social conditions that produce the children seeking admission to their ,homes: work out remedies for them and educate the public to needed reforms. The ultimate aim of an orphanage ought to be to close its doors.
PEGASUS
(Waimate).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 483, 24 September 1948, Page 5
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327ORPHANS AND ORPHANAGES New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 483, 24 September 1948, Page 5
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