Our First Ten Years • Recuperative Holidays • Neman Holiday Camp • Zhuravichi Boarding Home
Family Home 2000 • Rodni Kut • Mayflower Centre • Foster Care Training Programme
Children’s Hospice Care • Humanitarian Aid Deliveries • Special Class at School No 5
Vikov Home for Disabled Adults • Thanks to All Our Supporters

OUR first holiday at a sanatorium, or holiday camp, in Belarus took place in the Summer of 1998. We arranged for 50 children from Zhuravichi Boarding Home and 50 from Garadyets Special School who had never had the chance of a holiday before, to travel across the country to Neman, a beautiful site on the Polish border, near to Grodno. Volunteers, mostly from an organisation called Outlook helped to raise the money for the holidaq and flew out to work with the children and make sure they had a great time. Carers from Zhuravichi were able to see that the children were capable of doing much more than they had ever thought possible, and the children had the most memorable experience of their lives.
The next year we invited 300 children, 100 from Zhuravichi and the others from special schools. The children all had a great holiday but we decided it was more effective to stick to smaller numbers. Since then we have concentrated on Zhuravichi, and the orphans from Rechitsa Boarding School for children with cerebral palsy.
The children are given the opportunity to paint, draw, cut and paste, make masks, have their faces painted, play ball games, have races, dip their toes in the river, go for a boat ride, visit the park or the zoo, and from time to time to have the one to one attention which is just not possible at Zhuravichi.
We have sent out many wonderful volunteers – medical students, physiotherapists, teachers, early years workers and many others who have raised their air fares and then given two weeks of hard work. The holidays have been a life changing experience not just for the children – who live off them all year round, according to one teacher – but for some of the volunteers who have changed their career plans as a result of the time they have spent with the Zhuravichi children.
We have been able to organise this holiday every summer, with the help of our biggest supporters, the medical equipment company, KeyMed. They have also donated wonderful endoscopic equipment to hospitals in Belarus; funded the salaries of many of the staff we employ there and printed for free our calendars, cards and newsletters.