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

IN 2000 we were given part of a kindergarten by the Social Protection Department and we turned it into a well equipped comfortable home for Sasha, Liena, who has spina bifida and Greesha, who has severe cerebral palsy. They had all grown up at Zhuravichi where they had never had the chance of an education and had never been allowed to make decisions about anything.
In Family Home 2000 at Klimovka they learned to read, to cook and to look after themselves. A small team of carers worked on a rota, acting as mothers, friends and teachers to the young people, helping them to learn to make decisions for themselves. 
Within a few months they were joined by Sveta who had been educated at Rechitsa Boarding School, but had nowhere to live when she finished school. Her disability is not so severe as the others and this year she will move on to live in her own flat in Gomel. Sveta has been to secretarial college while living at Klimovka and is now working as the receptionist at the Mayflower Centre.
Sasha too longed for a greater degree of independence than Family Home 2000 could give him. During 2004 he left Klimovka and we found him a small house in Rogachev. He wanted to live on his own, but found this harder than he had expected. Whilst at Klimovka he had learned shoe repairing skills at School No 5 in Gomel. In Rogachev we found him a job working in a kiosk repairing shoes. This seemed ideal as it was easily accessible and he would get to meet lots of people. But Sasha found it stressful, especially if he made a mistake. For the winter he has come back to live at Duyanovka and we hope that in the Spring, when the snow has gone, he will try again to make a life for himself in Rogachev. We will give him all the support we can.
Greesha spends much of his time making cards – for Christmas and birthdays. Jim Caveen in Gloucester prepares second hand cards and pre-cut card to back them onto, and Greesha puts them together. He used to send most of them to Britain to sell but he now has a good market for them in Gomel. One of the FH2000 carers also runs the local library. Recently we helped to put ramps and wider doors at the library and Liena has started to give lessons in crochet and needlework skills. When Liena first came to Klimovka she was totally lacking in confidence about her ability to do anything. To be able to pass on her skills to others will be a huge boost to her self esteem.