Health, hope and happiness • Gomel baby home transformed • Growing support for hospice care
Congratulations to Natasha and Lilia • Special needs team visit to Belarus • Rodni House
The Mayflower Centre • Symbol Communication Training • Senior medical team visit Britain
Fund raising successes • Belarussian holiday for Zhuravichi children

Health, hope and happiness

Ira, who is in Devon for the summer

Belarussian children having a great time in the UK

Children from Svetlagorsk Orphanage

Our groups around the country have been busy since New Year preparing for the children’s summer visit - raising funds, recruiting host families and planning activities.The greatest benefit of the four week holiday is to improve the health of the children and boost their damaged immune systems. But they also have a great time, visiting the seaside and theme parks, swimming pools and bowling alleys, and enjoying picnics and barbecues.
Birmingham and Manchester Airports are once again generously providing us their services for free for our Belavia Charter flights on July 19th and 21st.
Teenagers in remission from cancer will enjoy holidays in Carmarthen, Aberystywth and Endon. The Endon and Stoke group also host younger children who this year will be from the Diabetic Association.
Leeds, West Pennine and Craven will also be hosting children who have had cancer and are members of the association ‘Children in Trouble’.
Glossop, Teesdale, Crewe and Evesham will host young children from this association, with their mothers.
Solihull will have a small group of children from Children in Trouble, plus some from Svetlagorsk Orphanage.
Some of our groups have links with particular schools which they have maintained over six or seven years. Gloucester & Cheltenham - Yurovichi School; Catterick - Korma School; Monk Fryston and The Dales - Uvaravichi School and Mid Essex - Terekhovka Centre.
Moray have hosted children in recent years from Terekhovka (which is a wonderful after-school and holiday activity centre) but this year have decided they would like to form a link with School No 57 in Gomel City.
Brothers and sisters of children with disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy or Autism will be coming to stay in Buxton & Longnor and Lunesdale.
And other groups host children who have recently been in hospital, or who come from poor families and have never had the chance of a holiday abroad - Llandinam, Colchester, Rugby, Southend and Merseyside.
Teifi Valley will have a small group of deaf children who we hope will again be given hearing tests and the possibility of new hearing aids at the Audiology Unit in theUniversity Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
Totnes specialises in supporting children with disabilities. Ira, who lives at ‘Rodni Kut’, our house in Rogachev, is in Devon for the Summer and in early June had an operation at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital to remove her deformed feet. Ira, who lives with Marion Clitheroe, has had fantastic support from the community in Devon. The Gilbert & Sullivan Society in Plymouth recently held a concert which raised £3,500 for Ira’s treatment. She will soon be fitted with her first prostheses.
In July a six month old baby called Sasha from the Home for Abandoned Babies in Gomel, will come to Devon for assessment. He was born with damaged hips, part of both legs and one arm missing, and webbed fingers on his other hand. He seems to be a bright baby and we hope to be able to ensure he has the best possible future, with whatever operations are necessary plus appropriate physiotherapy and then we will find him some foster parents in Gomel.
Totnes will also be hosting a teenage boy with severe cerebral palsy with his mum and brother, and Anya from Rodni Kut will be coming back to stay with the Edwards family in Ashprington for the Summer. This family has already raised large sums of money for the house in Rogachev, and this Summer Andrea is planning a week long peace and music festival, starting on July 26th.