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 1998 we first met Anna Gorchakova, the driving force behind the development of palliative care in Belarus.
Anna had set up the first Children’s Hospice in the country in 1994 and had built up a wonderful team of staff around her. They were supporting about fifty families with children in the last stages of cancer or with chronic disabilities, mostly in Minsk, but some in quite distant villages.
One day Anna told us the tragic story of a teenage girl who had been sent home to Grodno when her treatment failed. One day she was in terrible pain and the local doctors could not give her the pain killers she needed.
Her father put her on a horse and cart and took her on the two hour journey to the nearest hospital, but she died before receiving the help she needed. We decided that we must help to set up hospice care in other parts of the country and soon afterwards we met a wonderful haematologist in Gomel, Igor Iscrov, who was keen to provide care at home for patients who could not be cured.
Gomel Hospice was established in January 2000, providing home care for about twenty patients in and around the city. We have since provided support to set up a small Hospice in Vitebsk in the north of the country, and other charities have channelled support through us to set up Outreach Nurses in Mozyr, Zhlobin and Pinsk. After Anna came to speak at a Belarussian Embassy Conference in 2003 an Irish charity helped to set up a Hospice in Mogilev.
We have brought a number of hospice nurses and doctors to the UK to spend time with Macmillan Nurses and visit Hospices in Britain. And we have sent palliative care specialist to Belarus to offer advice and training. All this has been sponsored by the Victor Zorza Hospice Trust. KeyMed have also provided generous support for the Hospices as they have for Children in Trouble, the Diabetic Association and many of the hospitals we work with.
In 2003 the Belarussian Children’s Hospice decided that they needed to own their own premises, where they could have a day centre for chronically ill or disabled children, office and training space and small flats for children and their parents to stay. Sam Lupton, one of our most generous benefactors, donated £8,000 towards the purchase of the house which has been turned into a beautiful hospice. It was officially opened in the presence of the British Ambassador in September 2004.