Fitness and healthy lifestyle 

Charitable foundation for helping orphans. Help for orphans. The mystery of broken destinies

These orphans need your help, because children are our future ...

Modern Russia is experiencing a new wave of orphanhood. Official statistics reads: six hundred and fifty-four thousand orphans were registered in 2012 - every hundredth child is a pupil of an orphanage.

The number of "social" orphans in Russia is increasing every year. children whose parents refuse to take care of them or are deprived of parental rights ...

Today we are not going to analyze the reasons that make parents give their children into the hands of fate or the state ... Let's talk about how to help orphans in an already existing situation ...

Do we take part in helping children from orphanages: how do we really treat them?

« Children are our future "- is often heard from our lips. But do we refer this to all children? How much we invest our efforts, time, funds in the lives of our own children ... And how little do we even think about how "abandoned children" grow up? Is it because we see our future only in our children? What about the others? Are not orphans members of our society, in which we all live? ... And does the general state of the surrounding social environment not affect the development of your child?

Unfortunately, according to statistics from the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, 10% of the total number of orphans become suicides, another 40% are alcoholics and drug addicts, 40% are engaged in criminal activities, and only 10% fully adapt to life outside the orphanage. And, perhaps, tomorrow you will accidentally run into a thief who will steal your bag, or become a victim of a street fight, or maybe become an eyewitness to another crime ... Can you see in the offender the broken childhood fate of a once little boy or girl who grew up in an orphanage, or you will simply experience condemnation ... dislike ... aggression ... Have you done anything to make these children grow up as Human ... real developed members of society? Where were we when they ... huddled in a corner ... winding tears around their fist ... were thrown away ... and useless ...?

So why are these children “doomed” to an unhappy fate in orphanages? Why do they become criminals, antisocial in behavior, or simply cannot adapt in society? How to help orphans !?

Helping children from orphanages means not turning away from their destinies ...

Helping Orphans: What's Wrong with Them

Have you ever wondered what determines the level of happiness of children in childhood? Maybe the main thing is to feed, dress, put on shoes, provide housing? ... Many people think this way ... Or buy many different toys? ... But this is not so ... YOU are surprised?) Yes, it is, of course, necessary, but ... remember yourself in childhood ...

It is very important for children sense of security from parents! It is this that determines how happy their childhood was ... The fact is that if a child does not feel a sense of security, he himself will have to maintain his integrity in order to survive ... And instead of further internal development, they will focus on the struggle for survival in order to preserve balance with the outside world ... And they will do it like little animals, in all possible underdeveloped ways - to steal, take away, deceive ... They will grow callous, rude, with sadistic or masochistic inclinations, with fears and phobias, stuttering, isolation and other mental disorders ...

It is in childhood that we are especially vulnerable mentally, naive and most of all in need of guardianship and protection ... The degree of wealth, the number of toys, the variety of clothes, and so on - all this is secondary.

Even if parents do not always understand what their children want (after all, they often differ from their parents in properties), in the family they feel more or less protected, in contrast to the orphanage.

And if there are no parents to provide it, then WE must do it! We must be responsible for every child who grows up in our country!

The problem is that orphans lack that sense of security ...

Help orphans find a sense of security: to feel needed and protected ...

It is necessary to help the orphanage to raise these children as worthy members of society. In what conditions are they developing there now?

Children in orphanages live according to the principle of a flock, rank with each other, fight for the right to be more important, the elders beat, subjugate and rape the younger ones ... They have no internal prohibitions, they are outside of culture and restrictions, like many thousands of years ago ... undeveloped social animals ... in one flock ... protecting everyone for their safety ... maintaining their external and internal integrity ...

At the same time, they develop a feeling of inferiority, they do not understand why “someone has an easy life, but they have a hard time” ... Let's not say that there are obvious cases of violence in orphanages and rough treatment on the part of workers ... After experiencing humiliation and fear, they transfer resentment and aggression into adulthood: “I was not needed by anyone, and now that I am an adult, I have the right to get what I want” ... After going out into the world, beyond the threshold of the orphanage, they begin as compensation for their suffering “Take away” from society what they want by any antisocial means, without taking into account any laws or culture ... because when they were defenseless and abandoned, these laws and culture did not protect them ...

Society, once without giving true help to orphans, is now receiving its "results." After all, basically, unfortunately, underdeveloped personalities grow out of these children .... Often they never find their place in society, do not become professionals, do not work, do not study, their personal life does not develop ...

Helping orphans

This is not to say that they are not trying to solve the described problem. Various public figures, psychologists, sociologists, politicians, fighters for the rights of children are trying to help orphans. They sponsor existing orphanages, build new ones, and financially support children. However, all this gives practically nothing. Abandoned orphans need completely different attitude ... Moreover, society as a whole.

Do you take part in helping children from orphanages?

An attitude that will allow them to grow up feeling safe and secure. And it, in turn, follows not from the presence of material goods, but from the presence of an emotional connection with adults, a feeling of being needed, understood. When a child develops in an environment where he does not feel abandoned, raised like cattle, an animal, but a real person, then as he grows up he will be able to take responsibility for his life on himself and feel like a part of society.

To resort to this type of help for children from orphanages as "Adoption" is a very delicate matter, and it is not always acceptable, it must be approached with all responsibility and awareness of the act being done. I will write about this later, but now we will consider the solution to this problem in a different way.

Recently, the volunteer movement is just beginning to develop, in contrast to Western countries, where it has already entered the mass culture. Volunteer communities and special schools appear, under the care of which there are already thousands of orphans ...

Participation of volunteers in helping orphans

Volunteers are people with a sensitive soul, an open heart, full of compassion for these children. These qualities are possessed by people with a visual vector, for whom the goal of “making the life of these children better” is their realization. The desire to help orphans, to surround them with love, to give warmth to children often becomes the meaning of life for them.

At first, volunteers began to gather in groups, supporting orphanages with material means, but soon realized that this was not what they needed in the first place for real help to orphans.

From an interview with the founder of the "Volunteers Club" Ilya Ekushevsky:

« We realized that the most important thing is not the material assistance that we brought, but communication, support for children at the human level. They began to travel more often. They brought gifts, organized holidays and, over time, warm friendly relations with children.».

They began to work in the direction of the development of current preventive and educational measures, namely, from the formation of the need for a healthy lifestyle, strengthening the concept of the family, fostering civic responsibility, raising general culture, moral self-improvement and spiritual development.

Volunteers make it possible to communicate with worthy citizens of society, who would become for them the image of a positive person. Form friendships outside of orphanages. They are trying to create new acquaintances, joint trips to the cinema and museums, summer trips.

The "Volunteers Club" helps orphans by participating in their lives: holding holidays, master classes, events ...

They direct their main attention to giving these children the communication and attention that they need so much, to give the feeling that they are full-fledged normal members of society ...

Such a social movement, it seems to me, is one of the most effective in helping orphans. However, they also need the support of the state, because they rallied only on enthusiasm and their own voluntary investments. According to such clubs, their main problem is often not even large funding, but the lack of premises for events, difficulties with transport when traveling, and other everyday problems.

Volunteering is just picking up steam. The status, responsibility, volunteer rights, regulations are also being worked out. There are dozens of volunteer associations in Moscow. The emergence of volunteer schools is a natural continuation of the development of social activities to help children from orphanages.

Volunteer associations, if their idea is to erase the line between society and "extra children" by creating a mechanism in which each volunteer will feel a sense of personal involvement in the fate of the younger generation of these orphans, with the awareness of a private duty to the common future. One of these clubs, which does just this, is the "Volunteers Club", created in 2006 and now includes more than 3500 volunteers. This community today on a regular basis supports 35 children's institutions, in which more than 3,000 children are brought up, in the regions of the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation. (http://www.club-volonterov.ru/)

Awareness of the importance of our help to children from orphanages

It is necessary to take responsibility for realizing Real assistance to the orphanage in raising orphans as full-fledged members of our society.

It is our task to help orphans abandoned to their fate!

They are called “street children”, “extra children”, “homeless children” - why do we separate them from ordinary “children”? The most acute problem of our time is that we STILL HOTEL THEM FROM OWN CHILDREN, not understanding the importance of our participation in their development.

It is impossible to make children feel like full-fledged people, to accept moral and moral values, except by example, by the behavior of the adults around them, as well as society as a whole.

As educators for orphans, skin-visual women who have a high level of culture and morality, who are able to create cultural prohibitions that help little orphans from antisocial behavior to come to socialization, are ideal. They love children, feel their inner state. By creating emotional bonds with children, such women are able to remove any psychological trauma, fears and internal stress from the child.

Instead of protecting ourselves from “difficult asocial” children, whom we shun, blame, and even disdain to communicate with them, it is necessary to change our own intentions from rejecting them - to taking responsibility for their fate, understanding the reasons for their behavior and helping orphans.

Knowledge of the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan would allow each of us to understand what kind of child is in front of us, and what he lacks, what properties and character he has, how to give him a greater sense of security in childhood and help him find his bearings in adulthood. life ... It will show how harmoniously and interconnected our world is arranged, and will also make it possible to realize that the life of every human depends on us and affects us ... And the fate of our children is fundamental in the development of the future of all mankind ...

"Children is our future"

The Volunteers to Help Orphans Charitable Foundation grew out of an association of volunteers that supported more than 100 Russian hospitals where refusenik children live.

The Foundation implements programs aimed at solving the problem of social orphanhood: working with families to prevent refusals and seizures, providing various kinds of assistance to children in hospitals and boarding schools, promoting family placement of children, as well as socializing inmates of children's institutions. The Foundation seeks to draw the attention of all strata of society to the problem of orphanhood by interacting with the media, government agencies, and the general public to solve the problem of orphanhood.

Prevention of social orphanhood

One of the most common reasons for child abandonment is that a mother and child have nowhere to go from the hospital. She herself will somehow find a job, find a job, some kind of housing. But with a newborn in her arms, the chances are zero ... Our psychologists visit mothers, trying not only to dissuade the mother from taking such a serious step, but also helping to find ways out of the crisis situation. After being discharged from the hospital, mothers are helped to find a temporary shelter, to draw up the necessary documents for receiving benefits and medical care. Volunteers help the family until their fate is settled.

Helping orphans in hospitals and orphanages
Refuseniks in hospitals: resource provision

Helping refuseniks in hospitals is a set of measures aimed at helping children who are left without parental care and are in hospitals. The Foundation helps with the material support of inpatient medical institutions where such children live; selects and pays for the work of personnel (social educators for older children, nannies for toddlers and the disabled). These people work only with refuseniks, take care of them, develop, make sure that the children have everything they need. The main way to get needs for children-refuseniks is through promotions in hypermarkets http://www.otkazniki.ru/index.php?id=280

Volunteer care in Moscow hospitals

Specially trained volunteers visit orphans in hospitals, communicate with them, "give hands" to babies, conduct entertaining and educational activities with older children, read, draw, play. Their task is to brighten up the children's leisure time during hospitalization, to communicate, to support after a difficult operation. Such children can serve themselves, but their relatives do not visit them. They lack communication and attention. How are volunteers different from nannies? They are not constantly with the children, but come for several hours at a time agreed with the administration of the medical institution. Also, volunteers are not involved in treatment.

Socialization of pupils

Volunteers from the "Socialization of Pupils" team go to children's institutions: shelters, orphanages, boarding schools with developmental activities. Often, communication takes place in the format of master classes, when children have the opportunity to master one skill or another in a playful way. Volunteers organize trips for children to exhibitions and museums. Accompany them to various performances. Communicating with volunteers helps children gain insight into life outside the institution. In the future, after entering an independent life, it will be easier for them to navigate in a society that is familiar to us, but alien to them.

Children in Need program

The activities of volunteers from the Children in Need team are aimed at helping orphans in need of treatment. The volunteers involved in this program help the children with treatment, negotiate with the children's institution and the hospital about hospitalization of children. It is very important that highly qualified doctors are engaged in their treatment and modern medicines are used on time. But it is no less important that there is an adult nearby who constantly looks after, does not leave for a second, always help, always support. The fund pays for the work of nannies who look after sick orphans in hospitals around the clock. Paying nannies is the most costly item of the fund, since more and more children are “under the wing” of volunteers and funds for nannies are constantly needed. http://www.otkazniki.ru/index.php?id=279

Program "Assistance to the family placement of orphans"

Support and organization of events that contribute to the family placement of children deprived of parental care. A team of volunteers concludes agreements with guardians from different regions, which make it possible to post information about children on the official website www.opekaweb.ru, as well as in the media. Volunteers go to institutions, professional photographers and videographers take pictures of children with a camera, the resulting photographs and personal videos are posted on the website. So it is easier for parents, even from distant regions, to remotely find their child.

Refuseniks are nobody's children: abandoned by parents, forgotten by the state or removed from families. In hospitals, they are awaiting appointment to the appropriate institutions. In conditions unsuitable for the growth and development of a child, without care, adequate nutrition and hygiene products, they could live for years.

The history of the Volunteers to Help Orphaned Children (otkazniki.ru) Foundation began in 2004, when Lena Alshanskaya, then just Lena's mother, and now the President of the Foundation, was lying with her daughter in the hospital and could not understand: why from the next ward constantly , day and night, can you hear the hysterical cry of children? The medical staff were reluctant to answer her questions, but Lena found out: there, behind the wall, are (what is your definition?) Those same refuseniks.

The young mother decided to fight such a blatant injustice and, for a start, rallied a circle of not indifferent people: an association of volunteers who helped orphans in hospitals. First, on a whim: knocking on the authorities, establishing contacts with the medical staff, collecting diapers and food. And for two years of work, the association "Volunteers to help orphans" was able to raise the discussion of the problem of refuseniks in hospitals to the highest state level and give it publicity.

Thanks to the active development of the volunteer movement, the attention of the media to this problem, the Law on the financing of refuseniks in the Moscow region was adopted and there was a visible widespread reduction in the length of stay of refusenik children in hospitals near Moscow. Children do not "sit" for an infinitely long time. Yes, in many regions everything is the same, but the stories about how children 3-4 years old lived in hospitals are already receding into the past.

Many hospitals are covered by volunteers and are provided with all possible assistance. Special personnel are hired to take care of the children. Much-needed hygiene products are purchased and delivered (eternal lack of diapers!). Special food suitable for babies is obtained (before all babies were fed with the same mixture, if there was one, or even the usual hospital porridge). For several years, the movement of volunteers without official registration has provided support to more than 100 hospitals in Russia, where abandoned children end up. Now the activity is carried out on behalf of the “Volunteers to help orphans” foundation.

Immersion in the problem of "hospital" refuseniks revealed more and more problems associated with orphans. Their volunteers, too, could not ignore. So gradually, new projects of “Volunteers to help orphans” were born and were aimed at preventing social orphanhood and promoting family placement of children.

Not all children from orphanages find a family. For children over 10 years old, the chance of finding a new family is rather small. But there should be no single children at all, this is nonsense, every child needs a "personal adult". This is especially true for children who graduate from the orphanage and find themselves floating freely in an alien and unfamiliar world. To be able to adapt to new conditions, young people will need an adult who will help first in the orphanage, and then outside its walls. From these reflections, the Mentoring project was born. Its essence: a volunteer mentor "leads" a child from 10 years of age or older until he is fully on his feet. Being an adult friend is not easy at all. And the responsibility is great. While the volunteers started with one orphanage, if (better: when!) The first height is taken, they will move on. The second young project is master classes. It has already been more or less tested in two orphanages near Moscow. A group of volunteers has been formed who work directly with children: they regularly visit them, tell them, show and teach something interesting. And the children are looking forward to " their volunteers».

And, finally, the youngest brainchild of the Volunteers to Help Orphans Foundation is a program to prevent abandonment of children in a maternity hospital (with subsequent help to the family). An attempt to help parents cope with the difficulties that lead them to abandon the child. So far, again, work has begun with one maternity hospital. But there will certainly be others. If everything works out as planned, the maternity hospital will inform the Fund about the mother's intention to abandon the child. With her consent, professional psychologists will be sent there to help the mother understand herself, in the situation and make the right choice.

As part of the "Volunteers to Help Orphans" program, teams of volunteers carry out a variety of activities, which can be endlessly talked about. In short, they visit children's institutions, collect and deliver the necessary goods, organize and conduct campaigns to collect help (in the Auchan hypermarket chain, for example), supervise children during hospitalization in hospitals and child care facilities, look for families for them, work with children, look after and take care to the best of their ability ...


It remains for us to thank the volunteers at "Volunteers to help orphans" for their selfless work and wish them success in such difficult and very important matters! Or maybe connect to their fruitful and rewarding activities? After all, every caring person here will find something suitable and interesting for himself. New volunteers are always welcome! Together we can do more!

Volunteers to Help Orphans, the charitable foundation provides quick and effective assistance to children who, for some reason, are left without parental care, are disabled or have a serious illness. Let us consider in more detail information about this fund and about the goals and objectives that it sets for itself.

About the fund

The organization was registered in 2007. The official name is "Volunteers to Help Orphans". However, even before the foundation was registered, the community of activists that make up it were puzzled by the existing problem of orphanhood, the lack of assistance to orphans and volunteers in this area. Therefore, they took the necessary measures to provide social assistance to this category of citizens.

The team of this center consists of the following specialists:

  • President of the Foundation;
  • Vice President;
  • Coordinators of specific projects.

This charitable organization is supported by many other foundations, including large financial corporations that provide direct material assistance.

Programs

There are four main programs, the development and implementation of which is carried out by a charitable foundation.

Each of the programs includes separate blocks of projects that develop one or another area of ​​the life of orphans and disabled people. Each of the programs has its own coordinators who are responsible persons and regulate the procedure for providing assistance.

The charitable foundation implements such programs as:

  1. Prevention of social orphanhood.
  2. Helping kids in institutions.
  3. Family device.
  4. On the side of the child.

The latter program is new, compared to the others, which consists in defending the rights and legitimate interests of such children in various state and municipal institutions.


Prevention of social orphanhood

Four projects are being implemented within the framework of the program. So, for example, this is the prevention of abandonment of newborns. To implement it, a team of psychologists is sent to the maternity wards after receiving an alarm call that the young mother wants to abandon the baby, who help the woman in labor not to make such a colossal mistake.

The Warm House program is being implemented by providing young mothers with temporary housing. This is necessary in situations where a woman in labor wants to abandon her child due to the fact that they have nowhere to go.

In addition, prevention also includes projects - “helping families in difficult life situations”, as well as “helping families with mental disabilities”.

Helping children in institutions

In addition to preventing social orphanhood, this charitable foundation provides assistance to children who, due to difficult life circumstances, ended up in children's social institutions.

Within the framework of this program, such projects are being implemented as "Being close", "Distance education", "Children in need", etc. In general, this program is aimed at the rehabilitation and socialization of children in social institutions, to instill in them primary skills human community, their training and adaptation.

Family device

Help for orphans and children with disabilities is also in their placement in full-fledged families through adoption, finding a guardian, choosing a foster family. For this, various projects are being developed aimed at introducing future parents to children, teaching foster families to deal with orphans, etc.

Foster parent school

It is very important for children who find themselves in a difficult life situation to find a suitable family that will be a real support for the orphan. For this, a software program is being implemented for those who want to take babies. Education is carried out through trainings, presentations, communication with psychologists, as well as through acquaintance with children in the form of play activities.

This program is an effective means to avoid the possible return of a minor to an institution from a foster family.


What do volunteers do with their children

Volunteer work consists not only in providing material assistance to seriously ill children by collecting, for example, donations, but also in providing psychological assistance.

Various events are held for children, and acquaintance with the intended parents is carried out. Often, volunteers use the funds raised to purchase rehabilitation equipment, toys, clothes and educational materials for children.

As a rule, such work is done while they are in children's social institutions. Volunteers carefully study the needs of children, identify possible psychological pathologies and work on it. Working with little ones, as a rule, is done in the form of a game, which is the most acceptable form for them to express their inner problems and experiences.

Working with families

As a rule, work with families is done while they are in difficult life situations. Volunteers carefully study the needs of children and their parents, identify possible psychological pathologies and work on it. Working with children, as a rule, is carried out in the form of a game, which is the most acceptable form for them to express their inner problems and experiences. They work with parents in the form of psychological trainings and conversations.

Fund volunteers

The fund's volunteers are people with an active civic position. They have different education, but they all want to help and help children in need. The staff also employs psychologists, whose help is necessary for social adaptation and normalization of the mental state of orphans and disabled people.


Requirements for volunteers

There are no special requirements for work experience or, for example, education, for volunteers. The main thing is that they have the desire and time to help those in need. Of course, such persons should not be in alcohol and drug addiction, have asocial behavior. Some work in the volunteer center requires personal vehicles.

How to become a volunteer

In order to become a volunteer, a citizen must visit the website of this charitable foundation and leave his application there. It must be indicated in it: name, contact phone number, occupation, education, amount of free time, presence or absence of a car.

Also, future volunteers are invited to choose what kind of activity they want to engage in and in which program implemented by a charitable foundation to work.

After the application has been sent, it is considered by the administration of the fund and this or that decision is made on it. The applicant must be notified about it.


Legislative regulation

  1. Civil Code of the Russian Federation of November 30, 1994 N51-FZ.
  2. Federal Law of 11.08.1995 N51-FZ "On charitable activities and charitable organizations."
  3. Federal Law of 12.01.1996 N7-FZ "On Non-Commercial Organizations".
  4. Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 30.09.2015 N491 "On the State Prize of the Russian Federation for outstanding achievements in the field of human rights activities and the State Prize of the Russian Federation for outstanding achievements in the field of charitable activities"

Thus, this charitable foundation, which has been operating for many years, is an effective support for children, as well as for families in difficult situations. The volunteers of the center are constantly improving their skills and developing new programs.

“. We provide answers to different, different questions about volunteering. You can trust our answers! Experienced volunteers working today, coordinators of volunteer groups, specialists and experts share their knowledge, thoughts and experience.

Galina Aleksandrovskaya - coordinator for work with volunteers of the Volunteers to Help Orphans Charity Foundation

Be a volunteer for a fund to help orphans
(see the continuation of this article)

Fund volunteers

A volunteer is a person who has the strength, resources and spends his energy on something besides his main job and his personal life, and at the same time he has a great desire to help, that is, to carry out creative activities for free, free of charge. It's natural for me when people become volunteers. I have been working in the foundation for four years and volunteers are the people who surround me.

Our foundation is an organization that employs a lot of volunteers. It is called “Volunteers to help orphans”. At first there was a movement of volunteers, and then there was a need to consolidate a legal status, and a foundation was created. At first, there were practically no employees, but with the development of employees, there were more. By the standards of non-profit organizations, we are a large organization, and many functions - those that are performed by employees in other organizations - are performed by volunteers.

Most of our volunteers are like other charities. NGOs go to hospitals, visit children in orphanages, work with families, that is, communicate directly with beneficiaries. But we also have many volunteers performing administrative functions and work that requires a lot of time during the working day. It's practically a full-time job. On the one hand, this is good, because it saves the fund's resources, on the other hand, it often turns out that a person has too much workload. There are such volunteer positions where it is difficult to reduce the workload, there is no way to even “break” it into parts and distribute responsibilities among several volunteers. In particular, these can be leading, managerial positions. For example, we have a volunteer - the assistant to the coordinator of the project "Assistance to family arrangement", a volunteer - the coordinator of the "Volunteer care" project. We also have a volunteer who has been working for a very long time, almost since the foundation of our foundation, she is engaged in our base of volunteers - makes selections, mailings, is responsible for organizing transport assistance. And her husband created this base in due time. We have an excellent volunteer dispatcher for the reception and distribution of assistance, she does a lot and is always in touch. In general, we have a lot of volunteers who are entrusted with important administrative and organizational functions.

The opportunities and responsibilities of volunteers are very different. There are those for whom responsibility is single-tasked, which does not diminish its importance. I can cite as an example a volunteer who posts information about our urgent needs on the main page of the site, or a volunteer who signs up other volunteers for interviews with psychologists (who, in turn, are also volunteers). And there are volunteers who are offered a very big responsibility. They are like pillars: if you take them out, the organization may even suffer for a while, until we find a replacement for these people. These are primarily volunteers who lead projects or occupy significant positions. For example, these are the coordinators of our institutions.

The volunteers of our foundation are people of different backgrounds. They choose their own activities and come to different teams. Usually, a person initially wants to help in a certain area, for example, to help children. And he may not be ready to help families or do office work at all.

The choice of a volunteer and his place in our organization is influenced, firstly, by a person's personality as a person: whether he likes to work in a team, or is he an individualist, whether he wants to work directly with children and families, or is attracted by indirect activities. Secondly, his capabilities: he may only be able to work remotely or he can travel somewhere, he can join work at any time or at strictly defined hours, etc. And, thirdly, it is important which sphere is close to him: helping children and traveling to orphanages or hospitals, working with families, that is, mainly with adults, or helping with his professional skills, say, legal advice.

What do volunteers do with their children?

Our foundation has two projects in which volunteers communicate with orphans. These are the Projects "Being Near" and "Volunteer Care".

Volunteers of the “Be Nearby” team go to orphanages in the Moscow region. They travel in groups, spend time with children, communicate with them, organize leisure, invite people who could teach children some skills, broaden their horizons. It is very important for us that people from this team visit orphanages all the time, so that communication with children is not superficial, so that the person becomes a friend for the child. The ideal goal is for the volunteer to communicate with the child even after he leaves the orphanage.

Within the framework of the project "Be near" there are directions - "Social travel" and "Distance learning". Volunteers of "Sotsiobeg" conduct training sessions with children from Moscow orphanages on weekends. In "Distance learning" teachers use Skype to work with children from regional orphanages. This is a joint project with the Up Center.

All our projects are constantly evolving. In the fall, significant changes will take place in the “Being Near” project.

The second team is “Volunteer Care”. Volunteers go to hospitals and orphanages, boarding schools for mentally retarded children (DDI) mostly individually, according to their own schedule. A person is focused on his activities, he communicates with children, provides them with the necessary help. In institutions, volunteers play with children, communicate, develop, provide non-medical care, accompany during procedures. The types of activities and the ratio of care to leisure activities depend on the hospital, on the age of the children and on their diseases. But even where volunteers are mainly engaged in caring, they communicate with children, teach something, do not rush, make it clear to the child that he is important and that they have come to him.

We work in several hospitals and in two DIDs. In the latter, we are engaged in leisure activities - we play with children, conduct developmental activities, communicate, walk in good weather. Children - both toddlers and adolescents - lack basic communication because they are isolated. They have different levels of understanding and perception. We try to find an approach to each child, provide him with opportunities for development. It is far from always clear to what extent a child can get involved in this or that activity, what he likes and what does not. It is important in working with such children to be empathetic, patient, to try different types of activities and interactions. Such children really need attention and positive emotions.

Our volunteers also visit the "Mercy" departments, where children with a deep degree of mental retardation and serious injuries of the musculoskeletal system are located.

We have several hospitals - this is the Morozovskaya hospital, the 6th infectious diseases hospital, GBUZ "DGKB im. PER. Bashlyaeva DZM "(Former Tushinskaya), Moscow Regional Psychoneurological Hospital for Children with CNS Damage and Mental Disorders in Khovrino, Central Moscow Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital.

Children from zero to three are in our two hospitals. Developmental care is essential in these hospitals.

We must understand that we visit orphans in hospitals, this is our priority. But here, too, there are exceptions, for example, in a psychiatric hospital there are also family children, often from disadvantaged families or from families that live very far away, and the parents do not have the opportunity to visit the child often. As a rule, children are in the hospital for a long time. Naturally, when the volunteers come, they carry out activities with all the children.

People who go to hospitals are more individualistic and do painstaking work with children.

Each volunteer is assigned to a specific hospital or DDI and each institution has its own coordinator. The coordinators are responsible for maintaining hospital visit schedules. Equity of presence is important for us, so that there are volunteers every day.

A volunteer for a child in a hospital performs a role that is close to a friend, a friend. But here it is important not to cross the border. Children should understand that a volunteer is not a relative. But at the same time, he is not a hospital employee: he came to a specific child to study, help, pay attention.

It so happened that the team that travels to orphanages are people, on average, younger than hospital volunteers. Although we do not make any restrictions. I think that older people are sometimes not ready to join the team, discuss and come up with something, but they are ready strictly every week at the scheduled time to come to hospitals and work with children.

Working with families

We also have such a special, difficult and very important area of ​​activity - “Prevention of social orphanhood”. The team on this project works with families on a technology called Case Management. We help families in crisis. Volunteers in this area are family curators. In fact, they provide a link between the family and our foundation.

If a family turns to our foundation, then our specialist employees get to know the net, try to understand the problems and needs, and check how justified the request for help is. Based on the results, a report is written and a decision is made: will we help or not. In case of a positive decision, a plan of work with the family is formed. A family may need a variety of assistance, for example: assistance in restoring documents, assistance with placing a child in school, material and food assistance, escort through the authorities, etc. Next, we are looking for a family mentor among the volunteers. We have a permanent team of volunteer curators, which is replenished as needed. It often happens that a volunteer curator is already taking care of one family and at the same time takes on a second and a third.

In the project "Prevention of social orphanhood" we have several employees. Volunteers in this area are people with life experience, wisdom, and the ability to find a way out in different situations. These are mature people. Project staff support volunteers informationally and psychologically. Often it can become a problem for a volunteer that he is immersed in the numerous life difficulties of his charges, it becomes difficult for him and he can burn out, he can leave, or vice versa, he can bear all this to the detriment of himself and his loved ones. Therefore, much attention is paid to working with volunteers. Meetings, supervisions, burnout prevention trainings are held on a regular basis. People who have been working on this project for a long time are already practically professionals, social workers. Being a curator in this project is a lot of work.

Also within the framework of the "Prevention of social orphanhood" we have a project "Warm House" - this is a shelter for mothers with small children. At the shelter, volunteers provide one-time, mostly technical or economic assistance. These are people who bring material aid, fix something when there is such a need. Also, when required, mothers are taught something. We are looking for volunteers here with suitable qualifications.

How else do volunteers help?

I will briefly list other projects of the foundation: “Children in Need” - helping orphans with serious illnesses; "Resource assistance to refuseniks in hospitals" - providing hospitals with orphans in the Moscow region and adjacent regions; “Territory without orphans” - assistance to the family placement of orphans through the dissemination of information about children, as well as through the provision of methodological and informational support to the guardianship and guardianship authorities; "Close People" - help families who have adopted children with special needs. Also, many volunteers in resource teams help us: in the event team, in the PR team, in the Volunteer Center team, in the team for receiving and distributing assistance.

Requirements for volunteers

Our volunteers can be roughly divided into three groups.

The first is the people who do administrative work or work in resource teams. These are people who do not work directly with the beneficiaries, but much depends on them in the work of the foundation.

The second is the volunteers who work directly with the beneficiaries.

The third one is volunteers who help with transport or provide one-time assistance - they distribute flyers at promotions, sew toys in our workshops or fulfill household requests - to assemble a wardrobe, fix a socket, etc.

Based on the types of activities of volunteers, we have different requirements and a different format of relationships. For example, all volunteers who work with children and families should attend introductory workshops and interview a psychologist. Hospital volunteers must also undergo medical tests. In some teams, volunteers are required to sign confidentiality agreements, agreement to rules, or an agreement with the foundation.

We rarely send volunteers who work in administrative positions or on resource teams for an interview with a psychologist and do not ask for a written contract. It is usually sufficient to reach an oral agreement when meeting with the coordinator or even during a phone call. For example, as a rule, there is no need to meet with a designer who is ready to design a flyer or other printed matter for us. You can talk on the phone, and then communicate remotely.

The category that helps with transport, provides one-time assistance, comes to our workshops, participates in our promotions - these are people with whom we do not conclude an agreement for a long time. We invite these people through ads on the site, in social networks or through mailings and ask for one-time help. Often, regular volunteers from teams started with just this kind of help. It is important for many people not to have constant responsibility, since they have no confidence that they will be able to provide assistance regularly due to workload or for other reasons. It is easier for a person to provide one-time help and feel a part in our activities. In fact, there are permanent people here too, for example, volunteers who almost always participate in promotions, or drivers who can always help with transportation, drive regularly and whom we know. And there are people who have provided assistance only once - but this is also important for us.

The text was prepared by Yulia Matveeva, Nadezhda Pushkina, Natalia Vorotyntseva and Yuri Belanovsky