Despite many other sources, It is assumed that the term ‘ORPHAN’ originated from the Greek word ‘orphanós’ which means ‘left without parents’ or ‘child without parents’.
It was further defined as “a child whose one or both parents are dead and the child thus remained deprived of care, protection or sometimes even of their basic needs.
But, by the time, several changes took place in the lives of the orphans too and such definitions got modified from time to time and did not remain the same as defined above.
The society transformed from a joint family concept to nuclear family. One more step further, nowadays the nuclear family has become the subject matter of the past. In the recent past, we came across the brand new term as ‘single parenting’.
Although, during the nuclear family culture, if one of the parents were demised due to any of the reasons, remaining parents were taking care of the child and thus the interest of the child were still protected. But, suppose, the child’s remaining parent also met with an accident or fell too ill to recover and died, the child turned orphan. Another reason is that if any of the parents is not bothering towards the care of the child or both the parents keep fighting or abusing each other or maybe to the child, the child feels abandoned and starts feeling like an orphan despite the parents being alive.
With the growing trend of both the parents working to fulfil their needs or their dreams, the kids and the children are left alone at home. Such children also started facing life as an orphan. In such cases, parents started getting help from other relatives, well wishers or some sort of professionals. This was the start of ‘ORPHANAGE’.
If we go back to the history of ‘ORPHANAGE’, the concept of ‘ORPHANAGE’ was started in NEWYORK, a province of USA in 1875. The Govt. of Newyork started the provision to send the abandoned, orphans and the poor children under custody of the rich families. Simultaneously, the New York state arranged asylums for orphans.
And, it was the reason for the birth of an orphanage. Hence, the USA is known as the country to establish the first ever orphanage across the world in 1995.
Every passing day, the govt from all over the world-over took initiative to change the lives of orphans and so did the government of India too. A number of schemes were started by the union govt. as well as the state governments on their own and through several NGOs and orphanages.
But, after such rigorous efforts, it is found that ‘EDUCATION’ is one of the most important factors through which the condition of the miserable orphans would be improved.
For this reason, federal govts, state govts and the local authorities took several initiatives in this direction.
Some of the very important initiatives taken in India recently are:
Govt. of India as well as the state governments in India have been running free education to the children of upto 14 years of age under Right To Education (RTE) Act 2009.
The Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education is running a scheme called Samagra Shiksha.
Samagra Shiksha empowers the schools to let the students finish their school education starting from preschool level to senior secondary levels. Samagra Shiksha ensures equity and inclusion of school education at all the levels.
DoSEL and MWCD have offered support to all the states and UTs,teachers, DEOs and Child Welfare Committees to ensure the continuous education of those children orphaned due to the COVID 19.
‘PM CARES for Children Scheme’ has also been started for the children who became orphans due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan has also been instructed to admit 10 orphaned children by every Kendriya Vidyalaya subject but not more than two children in a class.
MWCD has also instructed all the States and UTs to check the status of children eligible under the PM CARES scheme and to make sure to register them on the concerned portal.
