Homeless Russian Kids

This week, I'm going to write about an interesting article I read in BBC for kids. It is about how homeless kids live in St. Petersburg, Russia. This article made me think about all the difficulties families with little money and especially families with economic difficulties that live in places with lots of problems and a harsh climate have. This article was written by a girl named Laura that visited Russia and she visited the place were some of the homeless kids live.

The place were this kids stay is very dirty, it is underground, it has garbage, it is dark, and it is very uncomfortable to live in. The "beds" kids use are just a bunch of blankets piled up in a corner. This "beds" are shared with about three other kids.

The ceiling in the cellar was very low and we had to bend down the whole time we were there. It was filthy dirt, it smelt, and there was rubbish all over the floor. There was a pile of blankets in a corner, which the three boys shared as a bed.

Another sad thing that happens is that many parents abandon their babies. Sometimes because the parents are alcoholic or have problems with drugs and when the babies are born, they get many problems like a little girl that is about six months and she keeps shaking. The doctors that attended her think that this happens to the girl because her mother may have been alcoholic and they think that problem is going to affect her all her life.

What is really sad about all this, is that the Russian goverment doesn't help care for the children at all. The only support children get is from charity foundations like Children in Crisis. The main reason why all this happens is that Russia is a very poor country and the living standards are quite low. There is a big problem with being addict to alcohol in Russia so many parents abandon their kids because they can't feed them or they can't care properly for them. In some countries, if you can't buy food, you get economical help from the goverment, for example, in the UK but in Russia you don't. This is why lots of families beg to survive.

Many charity foundations, like Children in Crisis give children some food at night out of a van. Also, they give day shelters some money. In day shelters, the kids can play, wash up, visit a doctor, and get some warm food. In day shelters, also, kids can go to classes and learn how to read and write so when they are adults they can get a job and they can survive.