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

ZHURAVICHI is hidden deep in the countryside in the north of Gomel Region and initially it took us many months to track down the home where the most disabled children are sent when they leave the Abandoned Babies Home in Gomel. When we first visited Zhuravichi there were few toys, most of the children did not receive any education and many of them spent all their lives confined to a cot. As well as providing the holiday at Neman we have:

As the care and education of children at Zhuravichi improved we began to worry about some of the young people who left the home at 18 and went on to adult institutions. We followed one young man, Sasha, to his new home at Kaptsevichi and were deeply saddened by what we saw. The home was officially designated for people with mental disabilities and/or psychological disorders, and was a very depressing place. Sasha, who was an intelligent young man confined to a wheelchair, had been labelled as schizophrenic. He had never been taught to read or write and had so little to do as a teenager that understandably he sometimes became frustrated and lost his temper. The home was totally unsuitable for him, and after taking him on the Neman holiday in the Summer we managed to get him moved to a better institution, at Duyanovka. We then brought him to Britain to spend a week at the National Star Centre in Cheltenham and to speak at our Conference, where he impressed everyone, including the Belarussian Ambassador.