On June 1st, Foster Families Day, the Skopje zoo hosted an event under the motto "Every child needs a family." The organisers were the "11 October" children's home, the City of Skopje and the Red Cross, and the goal was twofold - to honour foster families and to recruit new ones.

Among those attending were the prime minister's wife Rozi Mickoska, deputy social policy minister Gjoko Velkovski, Skopje mayor Orce Gjorgievski, along with representatives of institutions, donors and the foster families themselves. The message was clear: fostering is a humane form of care for children without parental protection.

Behind the nice words and the photos from the zoo sits a harder reality nobody likes to say out loud - how many children in Macedonia are actually waiting for a foster family, and how many families actually come forward. The event urged citizens to learn about fostering options, which on its own tells you demand is bigger than supply.

Foster families are some of the quietest heroes in any society - people who take a stranger's child as their own, with no cameras and no rewards. The recognition is deserved. But real support for them isn't measured by one day a year and one event. It's measured by the conditions, the funding and the help they get the other 364 days.