Last week I went on a trip to Belarus in Eastern Europe to visit the Zhodino Orphanage and Rehabilitation Centre. Belarus is a country that has struggled with their child care system for while. However, the past twenty years the 'Leaves of Hope' charity has helped the children in the Zhodino Orphanage to have a better life through a difference in child care. The charity supports the Zhodino Orphanage by redeveloping the Orphanage into a happier environment as well as preparing the children for foster families. The majority of the children in the Zhodino Orphanage have been placed in the orphanage by their parents who are unable to look after them. Some of these children have disabilities like Autism and need full time care, whereas others have growing deficiencies due to their mothers drinking alcohol or smoking during pregnancy, which then effects their child's life from birth. These children need a lot of care due to their specific needs, which sometimes makes fostering more difficult. However, many children from the Orphanage are fostered by families who are able to help them and provide a loving home that they need.
The 'Leaves of Hope' charity asks schools and support groups for their help and invites them to come out to Belarus and work in the Orphanage throughout the weeks. That is what myself and my school did last week. We spent about a week helping out in the Orphanage, repainting their play huts and playing with the children. We also visited the Rehabilitation Centre, where children who are in the fostering system either stay, waiting to be fostered, or come to the centre for child care throughout the day. It was an amazing experience to make the children smile everyday and see their personalities through playing and making crafts with them. Many organisations help the 'Leaves of Hope' charity by funding supplies and equipment for the Orphanage. This year the Order of St Lazarus Commandery of Wales also provided funding for the provision of toys and playroom equipment for the Orphanage, this was arranged in collaboration with my school the Cathedral School of Llandaff. Here are some photos that I took throughout my week in Belarus.
The 'Leaves of Hope' charity asks schools and support groups for their help and invites them to come out to Belarus and work in the Orphanage throughout the weeks. That is what myself and my school did last week. We spent about a week helping out in the Orphanage, repainting their play huts and playing with the children. We also visited the Rehabilitation Centre, where children who are in the fostering system either stay, waiting to be fostered, or come to the centre for child care throughout the day. It was an amazing experience to make the children smile everyday and see their personalities through playing and making crafts with them. Many organisations help the 'Leaves of Hope' charity by funding supplies and equipment for the Orphanage. This year the Order of St Lazarus Commandery of Wales also provided funding for the provision of toys and playroom equipment for the Orphanage, this was arranged in collaboration with my school the Cathedral School of Llandaff. Here are some photos that I took throughout my week in Belarus.
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Zhodino Orphanage
On one of the days that we spent in the Orphanage we made superhero capes with the children. The children were particularly interested in the glitter glue and various colours of paint. After they finished these capes they got to run around the play area pretending to be superheros.
We also got to spend some time with the children inside the Orphanage in their play rooms, where they have their toys and puzzles that they get to spend time throughout the day playing with.
Another craft that we did with the children was giving them a piece of fabric to draw on and then turned it into bunting. We encouraged them to try and write out their names on the fabric, this was the piece of fabric I coloured in with my name, Ellen, written in Belarusian as 'Эллен'. The picture below is what the finished bunting looked like.
As well as the bunting, the children also made eye masks which they filled with colour and jewels.
On the last day of visiting the Zhodino Orphanage, we brought the children ice-cream. As you can tell from their facial expressions they enjoyed this treat very much.
Sadly, two days after we left the Zhodino Orphanage it was closed down, due to the States decision of turning the Orphanage into a Kindergarten. Luckily the majority of the children that we saw that week had been fostered, however the remaining children were moved onto another Orphanage.
Rehabilitation Centre
This year was the first time that charity decided to visit the Rehabilitation Centre that was just down the road from the Zhodino Orphanage. The age range of children in the centre was from 3-14 years. Most of the children that we saw in the Centre were already in foster families, but came to the Rehabilitation Centre for child care throughout they day. The charity wanted to visit the centre to make the children happy by doing various crafts, like we did in the Orphanage, to see how it could potentially benefit them and the Rehabilitation Centre in the future, meaning that the 'Leaves of Hope' charity could possibly also work with them.
The activities we did the children in the Rehabilitation Centre consisted of making fairy wings, paper flowers, sheep, animal masks and playing with play dough.
Whilst the girls were making fairy wings, the boys played football. The boys seemed very happy to beat the older boys at a football match.
Like in the Orphanage, the children also enjoyed running around with the crafts that they made, especially the fairy wings.
The girls started to make bouquets of paper flowers to go with their fairy wings, the girls really enjoyed making these crafts as you can tell from the photos.
The children in both centres really enjoyed playing with the camera on mobile phones, as you can see in the photo above. When showing them photos of themselves with their various crafts they often laughed and smiled, proving to us that they were happy that we visited them.
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Visiting the Zhodino Orphanage and Rehabilitation Centre was a great experience. Bringing happiness to many children by visiting and spending time with them showed how much impact that the 'Leaves of Hope' charity has had on the children in Belarus. Even though it was difficult to communicate with the children due to the lack of Belarusian we all spoke, however a lot could be said through the smiles that all the children gave us throughout that week.
Please have a look at the 'Leaves of Hope for Belarusian Children' page on Facebook for additional photos that were taken by the charity members and more information about the charity. Here is the link that will take you to the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/leavesofhope1/
