How can you help children from the orphanage. How to help children if you have never done charity work

The state claims that our boarding schools and orphanages are provided with everything necessary. And in fact, about 20 thousand rubles are allocated annually for clothes for one pupil alone. Meanwhile, the state of many state residential institutions for orphans remains extremely deplorable, and many of us at least once, but collected "things for the orphanage." What is going on? Nadezhda VOLOBUEVA, President of the Kindness Charitable Foundation, told us about this.

The state claims that our boarding schools and orphanages are provided with everything necessary. And in fact, about 20 thousand rubles are allocated annually for clothes for one pupil alone. Meanwhile, the state of many state residential institutions for orphans remains extremely deplorable, and many of us at least once, but collected "things for the orphanage." What is going on? Nadezhda VOLOBUEVA, President of the Kindness Charitable Foundation, told us about this.

- What is the main thing in financial assistance to orphanages? Gifts for the holidays? Cloth? Computers? Repair?
- Medicines, personal hygiene items are always needed, necessarily materials for needlework - children take it with pleasure: they cut it out, burn it out, sculpt it, knit it. We also need medical equipment, which has become obsolete in almost all orphanages in the last century. Often, in the provinces, repairs in orphanages were last carried out in the fifties - then it is necessary to help with this in the first place. But before helping a specific orphanage, it is always better to come and see for yourself - the situation is very different everywhere.

- But there is an opinion that the orphanages are already full of both state and sponsorship. This is true?
“Unfortunately, not enough money is allocated from the regional budget. Especially in small towns and settlements in the regions of Russia. Children's institutions there are in great need of additional funding and assistance. Of course, much depends on the leader: if the director is active, does not hesitate to ask for help from local authorities and charitable organizations, then, as a rule, the situation in his institution is much better than that of a less energetic and lively leader.

Then, the main flow of charitable funds to the regions comes from Moscow and other large cities. Therefore, the closer the institution is to such centers, the more charitable organizations offer their help and visit them. A lot depends on the proximity of large enterprises - they often take care of orphanages. Looking at such patronized boarding schools, one might really think that there is abundance everywhere, but this is not so.

Of course, now is not the 90s, and, say, they are trying to allocate enough for food. This was followed up. But repairs are still difficult. It is not always clear whose fault it is, it only happens that before orphanage the money doesn't come through. It is not uncommon for officials to deny an institution the most necessary things. Thus, in the Rostov Region, the local administration announced to the Azov orphanage for mentally retarded children that in 2009 they would not buy diapers for them - there was no money. And she suggested that they themselves find the necessary amount. Pampers for all children in the orphanage cost about 130,000 rubles a month. How can an orphanage find such funds on its own?

Or here to buy " soft inventory» For one child, the state really allocates about 20 thousand rubles a year. It seems to be enough, but with these funds you need to buy not only all the clothes and shoes, but also bed linen, a mattress, and such a “mandatory” inventory item as a bedside rug. “I honestly tried to find boots cheaper than 1200 rubles, so that they were good. I didn’t find it,” the director of one orphanage told us. Well, how can you meet these twenty thousand?

Although the number of charitable organizations in our country is increasing every year, the situation in boarding schools and orphanages is improving very slowly, moreover, because of the crisis, companies are sharply cutting funds allocated for charitable needs. And we must remember that we do not help "children's residential institutions", but children who are deprived of a family. The least we can do is to make their life in the orphanage a little more comfortable, cozy, close to family life. Then they can feel needed, loved.

- There is also an opinion that the administration of orphanages almost without exception steals. How to distinguish an honest leader from a bad one?
- If you give even the best director the opportunity to steal, there is a risk that he will eventually use it and put at least a couple of thousand in his pocket. Many want to be helped in this way - they transferred money and did not require any reporting. This requires meticulous control by the philanthropist. If you wish, you can track every penny. But this is what concerns our funds. We have no control over the spending of public money.

We immediately say that we will need all the documents, that we will come to see the orphanage and will control all financial receipts. If the leader is honest, he agrees. This eliminates about one percent of directors. They do not refuse directly, but quietly disappear from the horizon: instead of them, the secretary starts to pick up the phone, they themselves are never there, you ask the secretary to call back, they do not call back.

- How to provide sponsorship so that children do not develop a consumer type of personality?
- How can you spoil a child who does not have the most important thing in life - parents? In our opinion, this is impossible. Every child is special, they have their own thoughts and feelings. It is important for him to be valued, his opinion taken into account, respected. Before buying new Year gifts, we asked the children to write letters to Santa Claus about what they would like to receive on New Year. Each letter was different from the others: it was decorated with drawings and poems. We tried to find for each child exactly the gift that he is waiting for. So the baby will feel that he was specially thought of, taken care of and brought exactly what he wanted. This is especially true for "adult" children. They want to have something of their own, personal. If children live in a warm family environment, then they will be able to transfer this atmosphere into their future life, create their own strong family.

And if at the same time a consumer attitude is formed in a child, then this is the fault of the administration of the orphanage, and not benefactors. She is also responsible for preparing the child for life outside the orphanage. A lot depends on upbringing. You can also spoil your child greatly if you do not instill positive qualities in him from childhood.

- They say a lot that orphanages do not cope with the upbringing of children (graduates fill up the criminal layer) and that the system needs to be reformed, and the orphanage should be disbanded. This is true? And - in what direction to reform?
- It is not orphanages that need to be reformed, but a system that now does not support their graduates after they leave. If there is housing and work, they will be more likely to embark on a normal path. Most people commit crime just to survive. Foster families need to be supported. Now the number of adopted children has greatly increased. We even have to close some children's homes, reorganize them, for example, into kindergartens, because there are almost no children left there. But the number of cases of so-called “secondary orphanhood” has also grown sharply, that is, when a family that has adopted a child, for some reason, gives it back to an orphanage. And for a child, returning to an orphanage is a huge emotional trauma.

The point is that very often foster family communication and psychological problems. Now in our country a child is being selected for a family. “I want him to be blue-eyed, calm and like me,” potential adoptive parents say. And you need to do the opposite - look for a family for a child, one in which he will be comfortable, calm, where he will feel loved. It is necessary to provide support to such families, provide them with the opportunity to consult with specialists: family psychologists, teachers. As statistics show, an adopted child behaves exemplary at first, and parents think that this will always be the case. Therefore, they are not ready for the fact that after a while the baby becomes irritable, nervous, his behavior changes dramatically. After all, children are very different in the orphanage. Many have a very difficult fate, most have drinking parents. This cannot but affect their psyche.

And foster parents suddenly begin to doubt whether it was right decision take the child from the orphanage. And they need help, to explain that these problems can be solved with the help of specialists. Then, many believe that by adopting a child, they are doing a good deed, and he will be grateful to them for this all his life. But in order to become strong family Parents need to put in a lot of effort. This does not happen in one day, not in a month or even in a year. So, in my opinion, it is necessary to pay special attention to work with adoptive parents.

Of course, it would be best if we prevent child abandonment. To do this, we need to help single mothers, parents of children with disabilities. But this is a completely different story.

Charitable Foundation "Dobroserdie" invites construction companies, organizations that could help with the repair or construction of new buildings in children's institutions for cooperation. At present, one of the primary tasks is assistance in the repair of the building of the Vorotynskaya (Kaluga region) and Nizhnechirskaya (Volgograd region) correctional boarding schools. Also, there is no person who would be involved in checking the estimates that are set out to the fund by contractors. In addition, the foundation invites manufacturers of medical equipment for cooperation: inhalers, warming devices, etc., which are needed by almost all children's institutions. The Foundation welcomes any help.

On June 1, Children's Day, we have prepared a certificate that will be useful to those who would like to help children, but do not know how to approach this. To whom to transfer money, where to donate toys and clothes, what else can be done - some answers (but not all) in our material.

Money

Several major charitable organizations operate in Russia:

• Some philanthropists consider gifts a bad idea - especially when it comes to valuable things. Elena Alshanskaya, director of the Volunteers to Help Orphans Foundation, says that only what the orphanage needs should be donated. With good intentions, people want to give expensive clothes or technology, but this can, on the contrary, harm the child: having left the orphanage, he will no longer be an orphan whom everyone wants to help. But he will grow up with the idea that he is constantly owed. If you want to support children left without parents, it is better to give them attention.

  

  Photo:

  Alexandra Krasnova / TASS

  Live communication

  Children from orphanages spend most of their time surrounded by teachers and caregivers. It is very important for them to communicate with adults, because they can set a good example or help with choosing a profession. Of course, movie characters always inspire children to heroic deeds, but real stories are also important and necessary.

  

  Photo:

  Valery Sharifulin / TASS

  If you are ready to spend time with orphans, then you can, for example, contact the Volunteers to Help Orphans Foundation. This organization has many programs aimed not only at communicating with children from orphanages, but also at supporting those who are in hospitals.

  You can also become a mentor for a child. It is very important for children from boarding schools to see the world outside their room. You can invite your child to go to the store with you, go to the country house or help with repairs. Before becoming a mentor, you need to prepare and undergo training. Several foundations are involved in this, for example, "Big Brothers Big Sisters".

  Other good deeds

  Good deeds don't have to take a lot of time. For example, you can rummage through your closet and collect clothes that you are unlikely to wear anymore. It is good if things are clean and in good condition.

  Worth a try to turn them in Second Friend Store. To do this, you need to fill out an application on the site, attach photos of clothes and a short description.

  You can also take the clothes to the Charity Shop, which will then sell them, and donate the proceeds to the Second Wind Foundation. By the way, the fund also has separate reception points in Moscow. The list can be viewed on the organization's website.

  Clothes, shoes and bags can be donated to Good Things. Some items are donated to those in need. Another is being sold, and the proceeds are used to buy equipment for the rehabilitation of children with disabilities from state rehabilitation centers in Moscow and the Moscow region. Good Things has several collection points, and project participants can come to you and pick up things themselves.

  

  Photo:

  Artem Geodakyan / TASS

  
  P.S. Be assertive in your desire to help foundations and other nonprofits. There are always not enough people and a lot of work. Of course, not all charitable foundations are represented in our note - it is impossible to list them physically. If you want to support children, you will find dozens more ways to do so.

• 17. 11. 2013

No gifts for orphanages. Yes, I don’t mean at all: “Guys, urgently help, this year we don’t have enough gifts for the unfortunate disadvantaged children in orphanages”, I mean exactly: “Please, please, stop mocking children from orphanages, filling up their gifts."

I understand that the text of this article will be very painful to read for about half of those who are going to do this (be strong, positive at the end). And the other half will silently and sadly nod and say: “Yes, I also talk about this all the time, but that doesn’t stop anyone.” I know that the first article will cause frustration or even aggression. Therefore, I want to say right away: “Yes, I also really love children and people in general”, “Yes, I myself also do something to help others, namely, I devote about 95% of my time to this, not counting sleep”, “Yes , I was at one time in huge number orphanages and even lived in one for a week, right in a group with children”, “Yes, I deal with volunteers from more than 20 regions of the country, and everywhere it’s exactly the same as in Moscow.” So guys, instead of being frustrated, let's just try to make our help at least a little more effective, that's what we all want, right?

So, why is it still impossible to give gifts to orphanages, and what can be done instead?

Take, for example, an ideal situation, that is, a situation in which all children got the same gifts, all equally, an ideal situation that excludes the possibility that the gifts did not reach the children. A situation in which a teenager did not sell a gift to buy cigarettes or beer. Or when the gift wasn't used to make someone jealous or simply show superiority ("look what I have, you don't"), usually after that the gift is either broken or stolen as soon as the owner has distracted himself from it, and, of course, this is very bad both for the owner and for the one who broke or stole.

So, even in this ideal situation (and you understand that this does not happen?), giving gifts to orphanages, boarding schools, social shelters and other forms of state orphanages (I emphasize: especially state ones) is destructive for the child's psyche , because according to statistics over time new year holidays a child from an orphanage attends about 17 Christmas trees and events and receives about 19 gifts (in the Moscow region - 25). Do you understand that this is just a survival marathon? Do you want to be the twenty-sixth who came running convulsively to love a child you did not know yesterday? And eighteenth? The saddest thing is that...

Do you want to be the twenty-sixth who came running convulsively to love a child you did not know yesterday? And eighteenth?

In the next month and a half, billions of rubles will be spent on toys, teddy bears, sleds, Barbies and even tablets, phones and iPods (yes, many children ask for exactly this, and many adults buy it for them, although they themselves guess that there is something it's not).

All this is monstrous because it brings up a terrible dependency, the child gets used to the fact that they give him something all the time, give, perform, and without any effort or visible reasons for him. Some exalted people constantly come who frantically try to love them all to death in half a day and move on (I know, because I myself was exactly the same). And then suddenly the child turns 18, and ... And nothing, no one goes to him, no one showers him with gifts, no one cares about the problems of "an adult healthy guy who has to go to work." Why should he? You only taught him to beg, you didn't teach him to earn. You taught him to accept gifts and amusements and thought that he should somehow guess about work. As a result, only 10% cope with this state of affairs, while the rest become drunkards, get into crime and prisons, and commit suicide. Think about it! 10%! 90%!

You only taught him to beg, you didn't teach him to earn. You taught him to accept gifts and entertainment and thought that he should somehow guess about work

Children in orphanages (and I mean in this case all types of state institutions this type) live according to the rules of a gloomy, inhuman and merciless system created at the beginning of the 20th century. Their pupils are not considered part of society, and therefore they do not become one. They are considered poor and unfortunate, miserable and deprived, and only truly sincere and professional charitable foundations are struggling with their socialization, trying to give them back the motivation to live, strive for something and achieve their goals, fill them with faith in their own strengths and suit them in families.

“Well, everyone helps as best they can,” they often answer me offendedly at the mention of professional funds. No, no, I'm not at all against a little help, and I know for sure that EVERYONE can help. But this is not about helping. I am writing all this precisely in order to explain: gifts to orphanages for the holidays and without them, as well as a bunch of fun activities for the holidays - this is not help, it is harm.

I will give an example from my own practice, when many years ago I came as part of a group of volunteers to one of the orphanages in the Tver region. We agreed on a visit in advance, prepared competitions and performances, clarified with the director that there would be no one except us that day. When we arrived, another group of volunteers left right in front of us, and the children, stretching, left the assembly hall with gifts. They hoped to go about their business, but the director ordered them to urgently go back to the hall, because "sponsors arrived", and the children wandered off to watch our next songs and dances, which they absolutely did not need. What benefit did we bring them by forcing them to sit in the assembly hall for half a day? What benefits can be brought by a master class on weaving baubles and soap making?

The director told them to urgently go back to the hall, because “sponsors arrived”, and the children wandered off to watch our next songs and dances, which they absolutely did not need

Well, what then to do and how to help, if there is such a desire?

I promised a positive at the end, and here it is: you can be not only needed, but very needed! For example, if you really want to arrange celebratory event, then organize it for children with disabilities. And try to take them somewhere out of the house, in our country they are so rarely given such an opportunity. And even better - consult with specialized funds and organize joint event for ordinary children and children with disabilities. This will be very helpful for both.

If you definitely want to give someone a gift, that is, children with cancer, there are children from low-income families, and just those who are on long-term treatment in the hospital, you definitely won’t spoil them. There are also elderly people, people in hospices and hospitals, paralyzed people, prisoners (everyone forgets about them) - they will all be happy with your warmth and attention, they will need your gifts and will be gratefully accepted.

Well, if you want to do something specifically for children from orphanages, then my advice to you is: donate money or become a volunteer in one of the foundations that really change their lives and save them.

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Orphanages bring sadness and fear to everyone who has never been to them personally. Indeed, what could be sadder than thousands of babies growing up without parents in specialized institutions throughout our vast country? Meanwhile, instead of worrying and sympathizing at a distance, each of us can personally help orphans. Orphanages in Moscow are constantly in need of new employees and volunteers, finances and some specific things, and are also happy to accept people who have decided to become parents.

Everyone can help

The concept of charity in our country today is subjective. Almost every week we watch and read news about new charity events and foundation reports. Most often, organizations brag about the millions collected for the treatment of specific children, turnkey repairs made in children's institutions and other global actions. This situation stimulates the development of a stereotype - only wealthy people can do good, and charity as a phenomenon is an expensive pleasure. All this is a big delusion, even the Baby Houses in Moscow, despite the well-being of the region, gladly accept any help. And there is nothing wrong with the fact that you want to do a good deed, but today you have the opportunity to spend very little time and money.

Where to begin?

Assistance can be different - it is financial investments, communication with pupils, work in an institution on a voluntary basis. Decide right away how serious your intentions are, what resources you have. If you are afraid that you will not be able to constantly visit the Children's Home, it is reasonable to limit yourself to a transfer to a charitable foundation or a one-time trip to the chosen institution. For those who plan to devote a significant part of their lives to helping orphans, it is useful to think about regular visits or even patronage of the chosen kids. Decide on a specific orphanage or try to get to know experienced volunteers. All Orphanages in Moscow have their own special rules and strict requirements for voluntary helpers. It is important to learn and remember them as quickly as possible.

The needs of the orphanage

Many institutions have their own websites, where the topic with a list of necessary things is updated in a timely manner. Needs can be different: from specific toys to interior and household items. Those who wish to help can independently purchase some of the listed items or transfer money to purchase them. Review the organization's acceptance policy. Not every Orphanage babies in Moscow accepts used clothes and toys. For a number of institutions, a prerequisite is the presence of labels and receipts confirming that the item is new. The same is true for food products. Some Baby Houses in Moscow are happy to accept cereals, juices and purees in the original packaging, while others flatly refuse such help.

What is patronage?

Children's institutions in Moscow and the region are well funded. For this reason, they often need help not material, but physical. We all know that vacancies "job, Baby House (Moscow)" are not prestigious. In institutions for infants and young children preschool age sometimes they allow volunteers (who have undergone a medical examination) to care for the wards. Also, many orphanages are not against the organization of holidays and one-time visits by volunteers. And yet, one of the main needs of orphans is communication. The best option for those who are confident in their own abilities and desire to help is patronage. This type of relationship involves friendship. Usually, a volunteer gets to know the chosen child by correspondence, and only after the contact is established, does he come personally. This option is optimal, since the child's experiences will be less vivid if the boss stops communicating.

Baby House: Adoption (Moscow)