The Nampo party committee has ordered teachers at orphan care facilities to personally take malnourished and sick children into their own homes to nurse them back to health, framing the directive as a socialist patriotic campaign under the slogan “Love the Future,” a source told Daily NK on Monday.
“After the Ninth Party Congress, the Nampo party issued an instruction to all orphan care facilities in the city, including nursing homes and child welfare centers, directing teachers to individually take home malnourished children and care for them as a socialist patriotic movement,” the source in South Pyongan province said.
The directive is framed as a follow-up measure to implement the decisions of the Ninth Party Congress, with the city party pushing compliance under the “Love the Future” slogan, the source said.
A burden no one asked for
During a week-long training session for child care educators held in the final week of February, city party officials acknowledged that orphaned children were suffering from malnutrition and illnesses including hepatitis and tuberculosis, the source said. They then instructed the teachers responsible for those children to personally bring them home and raise them as their own.
The city party characterized the campaign not as a simple charitable service but as a policy measure to embody the spirit of the Ninth Party Congress and practice love for the next generation. “Teachers must show genuine action by personally cooking for the children, feeding them and treating their illnesses, treating them as if they were their own children,” officials reportedly told the educators.
March has been designated as “Orphan Recovery Month,” with specific rules issued directing each teacher to take responsibility for at least one child suffering from malnutrition, hepatitis or tuberculosis and to house, feed and restore that child to health in their own home.
Under those rules, a child cannot be returned to the facility until a licensed doctor certifies that the illness has been fully cured or that the child’s weight has clearly increased. If a teacher is unable to bring a child home due to household circumstances, the rules permit them to prepare and deliver separate nutritional meals to the child each day instead, though the rules also note that care must be taken not to create a sense of inequality among other orphaned children in the process.
The city party has emphasized that the purpose of the campaign is not measured by the number of children treated but by the “sincerity” of the effort to gain even one kilogram of weight for each child over the course of the month and to cure whatever illness they carry so they can be raised as pillars of the country.
In response, child care facilities across Nampo have begun drawing up lists of sick children and consulting with party cell secretaries on who to take home first.
Many teachers are openly bewildered. “Our own families are barely getting by on corn rice. How does it make sense to take in a sick child and fatten them up with meat and eggs?” one teacher was quoted as saying. “Teachers are not merchants who earn money. How are we supposed to take in and raise orphans?”
Teachers are also dealing with fierce resistance from family members unwilling to bring children with contagious illnesses such as hepatitis and tuberculosis into their homes, the source said.
“The reason this unreasonable campaign is happening is the pressure from the party center to produce visible results after the Ninth Party Congress,” the source said. “The children’s poor nutrition is the state’s responsibility. There is widespread criticism that dumping this problem on teachers is going too far.”
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