Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's capital, is a beautiful modern city with a fair smattering of department stores, nice hotels and fine restaurants but as is often the case if you stray from the main streets then you get a more realistic picture of the state of the country. Kyrgyzstan is another small country with few resources experiencing post-Soviet economic stagnation and it's too far away to be absorbed and propped up by the European Union. People work long hours for little pay and live in aging cramped appartments; alcoholism is rife, as are the myriad social problems associated with it. Unfortunately the government simply doesn't have the funds to deal these issues, as we witnessed in three of the city's orphanages.
Tokmok orphanage houses 95 children aged birth-4 years, the majority of which are special needs. The kids, suffering conditions from autism to cerebal palsy, had been abandoned or given away by parents unable to care for them. The staff we saw were wonderful - handfeeding the kids, playing and caring for them but they recieved insufficient funding to supply all of the medicines needed for the children. Thanks to the support of World Nomads and Footprints we were able to purchase for them a lot of the medicine they were lacking - they were incredibly grateful.
Kant orphanage, an old soviet-style concrete building on the outskirts of the city, sleeps 30 children aged 2-7 years. A lot of these children come from caring families but their parents have to work in remote areas so the kids were placed there for 6 months at a time. The orphanage had a full time nurse but unfortunately no medicines, not even basic ones, to give the children if they were sick! We were able to buy them a supply to last them a year - bandages, iodine, cough syrup, antibiotics, paracetamol - basic things but so very badly needed. The centre had also been using the same sets of sheets and towels for 17 years, when we managed to supply them with new sets the manager almost cried.
Samuel orphanage is small facility housing only 14 children aged 4-14 years. Most of these children had suffered appalling childhoods and had to be rescued from abusive situations. They stay in the orphanage, attend the local school, perform household chores and milk the centre's four cows to sell the milk. Once again we were able to supply them with a supply of basic medicines and also pencils, a pile of exercise books and toothbrushes (their teeth were in a shocking state due to their life before the orphanage).
Visiting these places was very confronting for us, we saw beautiful children who smiled and played despite their situation. Resources were lacking but the staff were dedicated and caring, even though their daily wage was less than US$1. And the reality is that these are the lucky children - the waiting lists for these orphanages are enormous.
