Our Philosophy is that every child deserves to have the love, protection and care provided by parents. We recognize the family as being the most favorable setting for a child to develop and grow physically, mentally and emotionally.
Our strategy is to partner with local couples in order to inspire and motivate them to offer a place for children who have experienced the trauma of child abuse and neglect at orphanages or at risk families and who need stable and caring environment. We seek parents who can give love, guidance and understanding for children having physical, social and emotional needs.
Our Foster Care Program recruits, trains, certifies and supervises couples wanting to become foster parents. The main goal is to protect and provide sufficient care for a child in a nurturing, safe and loving environment, to give such a family an ongoing training and support in meeting child’s basic needs in food, clothing and medical assistance.
We became aware of the orphan issues in our community and want to engage people who are not indifferent to become a part of the solution by supporting the cause.
INDEPENDENT LIVING PROGRAM
There are many children going out of state orphanages. They soon realize that they will be released into an uncertain world where they have to fight on their own. These children without the benefits of guidance and advice are asked to walk out of the orphanage doors into homelessness, unemployment and a lifetime of struggle. Forced labor, sexual slavery and a life in the streets leading to crime, prostitution, alcohol and drug abuse is the destiny for many of this young people.
We have the power to help reshape their future by providing positive guidance and a sense of hope that will empower them to make healthy choices and live productive lives.
Our program is dedicated to equipping teens and youth with basic life skills needed to successfully transition from orphanages into productive, independent and confident adulthood.
We support the following areas:
- Teaching life skills:
Educational trainings, social theater, assistance in organizing daily life, explanatory talks about VAW and others, passing medical examination, medical treatment, corporate cultural recreation (cinema, rink, picnics in nature).
- Vocational guidance, assistance in studies, training in sewing skills in the social parlor.
- Legal consultation and follow-up, legal seminars and individual assistance
- Seeking work and employment
- Material aid
- Psychological and emotional support
- Professional psychological counseling and friendly talks on various topics
- Temporary accommodation:
Staying at the center «Step to Life» (only for girls and young moms)
SCHOOL OF MOTHERHOOD
«School of Motherhood» aims to prevent children from ending up in boarding schools and improve parental and marital skills among girls and women in a situation of risk.
In recent years, we have often been contacted by young moms or pregnant women for help, advice, support and even accommodation. Most of them are girls – graduates of remedial schools, as well as pedagogically neglected ones.
In the post-Soviet expanse the problem of secondary orphans among residential school graduates is acute, and so is the problem of willing abandonment and or forced removal by guardianship authorities. This is due to the inability of young people at risk to care for their children or their practice of child abuse. This leads to a subsequent placement in the residential school system and a continuation of the closed cycle of orphan disadvantage.
«School of Motherhood» serves to prevent early pregnancy and child abandonment as well as teaches parental-marital skills and offers individual counsel by a team of specialists (a psychologist, a social teacher, a lawyer) in a risk situation including temporary accommodation in an emergency. We also want to involve local church members, especially women, as volunteers in serving girls and women at risk.
The project is funded by Charity «Orphan’s promise».
ASSISTING AT-RISK FAMILIES
A disadvantaged family (an at-risk family) is, first of all, a unit of society in which relations between its members are disrupted. These families are conflict-prone and immoral, and they cannot be a center for raising children.
Economic and social difficulties, political conflicts and the general instability of society increase the complexity of the problems that arise in the family.
The main reason why families get into the category of «at-risk group» is difficult life circumstances. As we look at them from the perspective of the child’s well-being, we highlight the main ones:
- alcoholism and immoral behavior of parents;
- absence of one or both parents;
- aggressive behavior of parents;
- a low income in the family, unemployment one or both parents.
The program supports families at risk to prevent children from being removed from their families and placed in residential institutions, as well as it helps families to get out of material, moral, psychological and spiritual crises.
How we interact with the family:
- Studying the family and analyzing its problems;
- Basic inspection of the living conditions;
- Getting to know the family members and their network;
- Joint pedagogical consultations to determine a line of combined action;
- Studying the reasons for the family’s disadantages, their distinctive features, and goals;
- Coordination with all concerned organizations (educational institutions, pre-school institutions, juvenile inspectorate, etc.);
- Drawing up a work program;
- Routine and control visits to the family;
- Making conclusions and summing up the results of work.
OUR GOAL is to provide care for children raised in families which are in crisis and need social, psychological, legal, material and financial support.
This program is funded by the ChildAid Charity (England).
