Orphaned Children facts
While investigating facts about Orphaned Children, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Chuck E. Cheese’s official backstory is that he is an orphaned mouse who does not know his own birthday. To make up for never having a birthday party of his own, he hosts parties for children. And his middle name is Entertainment.
Indian Maharaja Jam Sahib adopted 640 Polish orphans during WWII. He brought the children to the royal palace in Bombay, had a dormitory built for them, and brought in Polish teachers and chefs so the children would feel at home and "recover their health and forget the ordeal they went through".
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about Orphaned Children I managed to collect.
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The Maharaja(Indian King) of Jamnagar took in and agreed to look after 1000 orphaned Polish children — Jews and Catholics alike — who faced an uncertain future during World War II. The Maharaja told the children, “You may not have your parents, but I am your father now.”
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Janusz Korczak was a man who accompanied 192 orphans to a concentration camp, refusing to save himself, while cheering and entertaining the children. He boarded the trains with them and was never heard from again.
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Milton Hershey being unable to have children founded the Milton Hershey School for orphans in 1909. He donated 30% of all future Hershey profits. It now has 7 billion in assets, and continues to serve orphans in financial need. Milton also prohibited it's use in any advertising.
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A 12-year-old boy spent 2 years collecting over 160,000 bottles after school and donated all the money he made ($2,700) to orphans in an AIDS epidemic region in China. He also donated his personal savings ($30) and collected 800 books to give to the children.
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The Monster Study was an experiment designed to induce stuttering in otherwise normal-speaking orphan children. Some of the children were praised for their speech, while others ridiculed and belittled… these children later developed speech problems that lasted their entire life.
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"AIDS orphan tourism" in Africa is a thing, where volunteers temporarily care for children who have lost their parents to the virus, and has left children with attachment disorders and encouraged orphanages to purposefully keep them in poor conditions to attract more volunteers.
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A US cargo plane crashed while moving children from Vietnam. American businessman Robert Macauley heard that it would take over a week to evacuate the survivors, so he chartered a Boeing 747 and arranged for 300 orphaned children to leave the country, paying for the trip by mortgaging his house.
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After the Romanian Revolution in 1989 many orphanages were shut down forcing thousands of neglected orphans to live in the sewers of Bucharest. Many of those orphans still live in the sewers today, some have even raised their children there
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Beginning in the 1940s through the 1960s, the Quebec government collaborated with the Catholic Church to falsely certify 20,000 "orphaned" children as mentally ill and confine them to psychiatric institutions. The orphans were then subjected to medical experimentation and sexual abuse.
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11.9% of all children in Africa are orphans
What is true about orphaned children?
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About 'Wolfskinder' - orphaned German children during WW2 who fled the then East Prussia to Lithuania. They survived hunger, cold and loss of identity. It was estimated that upto 25000 kids were roaming the woods and swamps of these regions after 1945.
In the 1950s the government of Quebec illegally certified upwards of 20,000 orphaned children as mentally ill and had them committed to institutions. According to the testimony of several individuals, they were subjected to medical experimentation - source
Between 1854 and 1929, over 250,000 orphans and unwanted children were given away at train stations throughout the US. - source
Starting in 1869, more than 100,000 poor and orphaned children from the UK were sent to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa to help with the shortage of Labor. Many of the children were forcefully taken away from their parents and used for slave labor.
About the orphan trains which sent orphans from New York city to various parts of the US in hopes that the children would be adopted along the way. - source
During the Civil War, children of fallen soldiers around Gettysburgh were often sent to an orphanage called the Soldier's Orphan Homestead. Here, children suffered many forms of abuse, including being shackled in a room nicknamed "the dungeon" for punishment.
J.K. Rowling, author Harry Potter series launched in 1997 successfully rebuffed a law suit by an American author who published a series of children’s books in 1984 about Larry Potter, an orphaned boy wizard wearing glasses surrounded by Muggles.
The Wolf Children of WWII (1945-1948) German children, orphaned at the end of war. Many starved. Hundreds were illegally adopted by Lithuanian farmers to survive. They remained hidden in the fabric of the Soviet Union until the 1990's. They are fighting to regain German citizenship.
Because the generous donations from Westerners 75% of children in orphanages in Cambodia are not actually orphans
While generally considered admirable, especially in the case of orphans, it was once a crime in Poland for children to sell bagels. Often police would beat these children and confiscate their bagels and bagel vending paraphernalia upon apprehension.
In 1975 an American businessman named Robert Macauley chartered a Boeing 747 and arranged for 300 orphaned Vietnamese children to leave the country, paying for the trip by mortgaging his house.
