On October 19, Vitebsk /Olga Bogacheva - BELTA/. Two family-type children's homes are planned to be opened in the Vitebsk region by the end of the year, the first deputy head of the education department of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee, Leonid Stepanov, told a BELTA correspondent. The family-type homes will be opened in Shumilino and Chashniki. The facilities are being constructed according to a standard design as part of the implementation of the state program "Children of Belarus". Each of them is designed to accommodate a family raising up to 10 children. In total, since 2006, under the state program "Children of Belarus", 15 homes have been built in the Vitebsk region for families raising orphans in the Vitebsk, Verkhnedvinsk, Miory, Glubokoye, Dokshitsy, Orsha, and Lepel districts, as well as in Orsha and Gorodok. 112 children have found their families in these homes. "The region is carrying out targeted and systematic work to transfer orphans and children left without parental care to family-based care. Our main task is to find a family for each such child," emphasized Leonid Stepanov. According to the latest data, there are 208,000 children under 18 years of age living in the Vitebsk region. Approximately 4,500 children are orphans or have been left without parental care, of whom 2,600 children are being raised in foster families. 79 children have been adopted since the beginning of the year. -0-

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