Happy, healthy holiday for Belarussian children | Summer of music, painting and laughter for the children of Zhuravichi
Cloud Nine - our new project | British Ambassador opens "Family Home 2000"
Aid to Belarus | Foster care training programme | Funding our work

This August CCP(UK), with the support of KeyMed, organised a three week break for children with disabilities at Neman Holiday Camp in a clean and beautiful part of Belarus. This was the fourth time children from Zhuravichi Children's Home had been invited and once again many enthusiastic people from Britain volunteered to organise games and activities and to offer the one-to-one care and attention which is so often lacking in the overcrowded and understaffed orphanage.
Painting was a favourite activity and luckily the group were well equipped with art materials which supporters had kindly donated. Music sessions were another big hit, made possible thanks to the money raised by students from the National Star Centre, a college for students with disabilities which has done much to support the Project's work with disabled young people.
One of their students, Stacey, worked really hard raising money and then decided to become a volunteer herself.

She is pictured here with Zhenya, a lively boy with cerebral palsy, who is very bright but cannot speak and has no way of communicating other than pointing and gesturing. Stacey spent a long time trying to teach him some simple words in sign language, which he picked up really quickly and loved to use whenever he could.
The language barrier was never really a problem as the children were happy to witter on in their own language, and the volunteers did the same! Two members of the team, Sarah and Helena, were Russian speakers and over half the group were medical students, including Alice and Amit (pictured). They were also joined for a week by Brian and Sue Carlyon, disability specialists who were assessing the children's potential for 'Cloud Nine'.