Survey spotlights kids who lost parents in quake
The Yomiuri Shimbun
About 40 percent of children who lost at least one parent in the Great East Japan Earthquake are primary school students or younger, a nonprofit orphan-aid organization said.
The survey was conducted by Tokyo-based Ashinaga (daddy long legs) on about 1,100 children who have been left without at least one parent by the March 11 disaster.
According to the survey, 714 children lost their fathers, who were their family's breadwinners, accounting for more than 60 percent of the total.
"There is reason to believe that those children face a dire financial situation. We need to provide them with long-term support," an Ashinaga official said Monday.
Ashinaga provides financial aid to children whose parents died or remain missing due to the earthquake, as well as to those whose parents were left disabled by the disaster. Children covered by the aid program range from infants to university students.
The assistance comes in the form of a special lump-sum payment of up to 1 million yen per child.
Ashinaga screened applications from 1,120 people in 707 households requesting financial assistance as of the end of May. They showed that 346, or 30.9 percent, of the children are primary school students, while 137, or 12.2 percent, are preschool age.
Another 242, or 21.6 percent, are middle school students, and 252, or 22.5 percent, are high school students.
Of the affected children, 73 lost both of their parents, and many now live with their grandparents or uncles and aunts.
As for the ages of those with whom the orphaned children live, 285, or 43.2 percent, are in their 40s, 22 are 70 or older, and 29 are in their teens or 20s.
Of about 200 people who look after quake orphans who attend high schools or higher education facilities, 32.2 percent are unemployed or looking for a job.
(Jun. 29, 2011)
Daily Yomiuri Online IIRC, this was the organization SYH was supporting, right?
This is a terrible number...