A new life at Cloud Nine | Medical care for Lova | Children’s hospice visit | Educational visits programme set to expand
Holiday plans for summer 2002 | Aid deliveries | Holiday at Neman Sanatorium | Funding our work | British 10K Open Road Race

WE WILL begin work this spring on the Cloud Nine Centre in Gomel. This will be part of the Regional Diagnostic and Rehabilitation Centre, which will be run by the Education Department.

We had planned to set up a small children's home for about 15 of the most physically disabled children from the orphanage at Zhuravichi, but after much discussion with the Social Protection department, it was decided that the best plan is to make one unit in the Rehabilitation Centre suitable for these children so that many of them will have the opportunity to receive a high level of care, therapy and educational opportunities, for up to two months at a time.

The children will be accompanied by three of their carers from Zhuravichi who will then be able to use they skills they have learned at the Centre to help the children continue with their progress once they return to the orphanage.

From mid April onwards we hope to send out volunteer roofers, joiners, electricians, plumbers and others with building skills to help to renovate a former kindergarten in the Selmarsh district of Gomel, turning it into a warm, comfortable and well equipped environment for children like Anya (pictured left with her carer Marina) and Inna (above).

Anya and six-year-old Anton, who is blind, came to Devon last year and made such amazing progress in two months that we were reluctant to let them go back to Zhuravichi.
The National Rehabilitation Centre in Minsk offered to have them, and they have just spent four months there, receiving speech therapy and physio and spending lots of time in the hydro pool.

Both children are now back in Britain, Anya with the Edwards family in Devon and Anton with Sarah Grenfell in Teifi Valley, and they will spend several months here before returning to the Centre in Minsk.

Many of the children at Zhuravichi have spent years lying in a cot. We hope that the Cloud Nine Centre will enable these children to learn to sit up and see the world; to crawl; to walk using specially adapted walking frames; to learn to communicate; to feed themselves; and to develop a sense of self-esteem. Not all these achievements will be possible of course for all children. But we are sure that every child will derive great benefit from the Centre.

The other huge advantage of being in Gomel is that the children will have the chance to go out into the local community, and school children, students and others will come to the Centre to visit them. This two way process will play a crucial part in educating the public about the existence of disabled children, their need for the same love and care as every other child and their right to the chance of an education and a place in society.

Once the building work is completed we will be seeking sponsorship for some of the staff as we will be sharing responsibility for their employment during the first three years with the Social Protection Department.
After first working with the most physically disabled children, the Centre staff will then be able to give some of their attention to others, such as children with Downs Syndrome like Raya, shown here with Luke Calcraft of KeyMed on a recent visit to Zhuravichi.
KeyMed will be giving their support to this project, as they do to so many of our initiatives in Belarus.