Beishenbaev Family: Makhabat and Rasul (left), Ilzat and Ilyaz.
Their father is a subsistence farmer and their mother an
alcoholic. They have no house and were living in a hut on the land
which they worked for the landowner. They live 15 km from the
school.
1. Makhabat Beishenbaeva.
2. Ilzat Neiyazbekov-Beishenbaev (12).
3. Rasul Beishenbaev (6). He is a kindergartner at the
Kara-Balta School.
4. Ilyaz Beshembaev (6). Like his brother Rasul (above),
he is a kindergartner at the Kara-Balta School.
5. Alyosha Belik (12). He has no father and his mother
is sick with cancer and unable to take care of her five children; often they
went hungry. The family began to dissolve after Turks raped his
sister Valya (below). Alyosha studies in the 2B class; before this
year he had never been to school and he is struggling with learning
disabilities to learn to read and write.
6. Valya Belik (15). At age 10, she was raped by Turks
who paid off the poor family not to inform on them to the
authorities. She completed only 1st and 2nd grades before this
tragedy, and afterwards did not attend school until November 2000.
She has
learning disabilities, but is trying to learn in the 2B class. Her mother is
sick with cancer and unable to feed her five children,
so she began living with her brother Alyosha (above) in the Children's
Home. Her condition and long-range suitability for the Children's
Home are under review.
7. Anya Kurysheva (9). Anya has no mother and her father is
an alcoholic who frequently hosts drinking parties in their home.
Her 79-year-old grandfather does what little he can to help. She lives
at the Children's Home temporarily and studies in 2nd grade at the
Kara-Balta School.
8. Inessa Tesakova (9). Inessa's mother lives in Kazakhstan,
but Inessa chose to stay in Kyrgyzstan because she likes the Kara-Balta
School so much. She lives at the Children's Home temporarily and
was taken in not so much for her need, but because the presence of a
responsible, helpful, more normal child is a very valuable asset to the
child-care staff: she sets a good example for the other children and
even helps out the child-care workers. She is in 2nd grade at the
Kara-Balta School
9. Masha Brozovskaya (6). She, her brother Misha (below),
and their 2 younger siblings have no father and their mother is unable
to work because of the younger children. Last year, the family of
5 lived in an abandoned store with no heating or water. She is a
kindergartner in the Kara-Balta School and lives
at the Children's Home temporarily.
10. Misha Brozovskii (9). He and his sister Masha (above)
are cheerful despite their difficult conditions (see above). He
studies in the 2B class at the Kara-Balta School and lives
at the Children's Home temporarily.
11. Vova Sarbin (9). Vova's parents are alcoholics and
drug-abusers who left Vova to sleep in the apartment stairwell while
they partied. Neighbors finally brought Vova to the Kara-Balta
School to seek help. The P.E. teacher decided to take Vova in, but
a year later, her frequently-drunk husband refused to care for Vova and
threatened to leave her if she insisted on keeping him. His
parents who live several houses down the road have never even looked for
him. He is a second grader at the Kara-Balta School.
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Popov Family: Anvar and Lenar (top), Asalya and Amina (bottom).
These four children have no father and their mother is in prison for the
second time. Her present five- year term will end in 2005. The
children were living in a Red Crescent Shelter and in the city hospital.
12. Lenar Popov (12).
13. Anvar Popov (10).
14 and 15. Amina () and Asalya () Popova.
16. Tarel Otombaev (9). Tarel has no father and his aged, poor, and weak but heroic mother has
unofficially adopted five children off the streets, including Kaliya
(below). He studies in the 2B class and is living at the Children's Home temporarily to
relieve his mother, who is burdened with an adopted infant and receives only $6/month welfare
for handicaps. Before he began living in the Children's Home, he
spent all his free time collecting bottles and selling them in the
bazaar.
17. Kaliya Otombaeva (6) is an orphan; the identity and
location of her parents are
unknown. She was taken in by Tarel's mother (above), who has taken
in five street children but is unable to adequately care for them due to
age and disabilities. Kaliya is a kindergartner at the
Kara-Balta School.
18. Marina Peshkova (6). Her mother is epileptic, unemployed,
and frequently gets drunk with Marina's grandmother and grandfather.
She lives
at the Children's Home temporarily and is a kindergartner at the
Kara-Balta School..
19. Kristina Dombrovskaya (9). Her mother came to Kyrgyzstan
from Russia recently and began living with her new boyfriend's mother
(the only wage earner) and invalid father. Neither the mother nor the boyfriend work, though both
are young and healthy; instead they frequently get drunk. The
boyfriend's parents feel no responsibility toward Kristina. She
studies in the 2B class at the Kara-Balta School and lives
at the Children's Home temporarily.
20. Sasha Polyakov (11). His mother, defending the children
from her drunk husband, killed him and was put in prison. Though
his aged grandmother was supposed to take care of him, she abused him
and he lived for much of his mother's 5-year prison term in various stairwells around town. He
attends 4th grade at the Kara-Balta School and lives at the Children's
Home temporarily while his mother, just released from prison, gets her
life reorganized.
21. Sergei Aidarkanov (9). Sergei's mother is in prison and
his alchoholic father frequently drove Sergei from the house. Now
Segei attends the 2nd grade at the Kara-Balta School.
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