Volunteers' support

In October we welcomed new foreign volunteers as a part of EVS (European voluntary service) program: a young man named Julian from Austria and a young lady named Fabiola who arrived from the sunny Italy. These young people work at the orphanage every day together with the Russian volunteers and help our children to learn more about the world.

In order to prepare the EVS volunteers for working with “special” children at the orphanage environment we conducted a week of seminars: the specialists of “Shag navstrechu” told about safety rules, about teaching children to eat and brush their teeth and explained how one should behave with the child during a city trip or during a camp, etc.

Each foreign volunteer has a mentor – a friend who helps to adapt to the new surroundings, who will provide support if necessary or may simply offer to spend a good time together by going to the movies. After this long search two amazing people Tonya and Danya became mentors for Julian and Fabiola. The introduction took place in an easy and interesting atmosphere while preparing personal business cards and playing charades:)

In order to communicate with their colleagues and also in order to lead an active social life in Saint Petersburg our volunteers definitely need to speak Russian very well. Therefore we offer language courses to our volunteers as a part of this project. The amazing DasProekt school of German which also teaches Russian as a foreign language has been educating our volunteers for the second season in a row: they have an individual approach, professional teachers, comfortable classrooms and excellent location at the very heart of the city!

Thank you for making this amazing experience happen! 

We spent the last week of this rainy summer which we loved nevertheless with the children, volunteers and specialists at the “Raivola” recreation center surrounded by the tallest pines, thick growth of blueberries and a pond with golden fishes.

Anastasia and Davlat:

Our journey to the camp started very well.

Just like many children Davlatik loves to travel by car. Packing things, anticipation, heat and anxiety made him tired and he slept during most of the way. When we checked in, he was running not-stop and examined everything even the smallest shelf. He made a visit to our friends who lived next door. On the first day it was certainly very hard to calm down and to fall asleep.

We slept very tight and ate a lot during the whole week!

We often went for a walk and ran happily around. The first days were especially eventful because of the weather. We went to the pond to feed the fishes and to the lake to enjoy the landscape, to play on the beach with the bucket and spade and to build towers. To run around, to have fun and to sit in the sun. In the evenings we usually were drawing on the film, on the wooden sticks, on paper and made flags from cloth.

As we walked in the forest we usually collected wild strawberries, blueberries, cones and flowers. We made cut and paste art from flowers, sticks and cones. Davlat likes to cut, glue and arrange everything by the small bags and cans. One of our favorite activities was the collection of cones into a bag made of cloth which Masha the art therapist gave us for the collection of ECO materials. Davlat sometimes fell asleep with this bag in his hands and brought it along to the group, he refused to let it out of his hands even on the bus.

We also drank oxygen cocktail, took away apples after breakfast (and dinner) to eat them in our room later. Davlatik likes apples, bananas and fruits in general very much. However I cannot say the same about vegetables. He liked food which is colored in red and violet. Beets, pizza, various meatballs, cheese, ham, pastries. At least that was what he usually chose from the whole selection available.

Approximately on the third day we started to choose dinner, supper or simply something sweet to eat. I was very happy to see Davlat doing it, to see him making an actual choice instead of simply taking everything he can grasp.

It was very cool to run around together and to learn new things.

Special moments included evening shower and going to bed. And morning. We had a special comfortable ritual in the morning and the child behaved differently in the morning in general. This is very nice.

Sometimes it was very hard but it was all leveled by endless love and hugs. Usually when we had difficulties we never failed to find a common tongue and to come to an agreement. Davlat was excited more than usual due to the new impressions but he was very responsive and attentive at the same time.

During rainy days we watched cozy cartoons, blew soap bubbles from the balcony, painted, made cut and paste art and played in the children’s house. We slid down the slides, went “swimming” to the dry swimming pool, were riding dolls in the stroller, cooked food at the children’s kitchen and even played pool. We also jumped on the trampolines but that happened only once (because of the rain) and each time it was very hard to pass them by.

Common shower was our special joy. At first Davlat was even afraid to wash himself, but later he took the shower himself, turned it on and off and handled it very well on his own.

Also … it was very interesting to see how Davlat reacted to other people and children. And how they reacted to us. Davlatik enjoyed making contact with the other kids. Especially with the little ones. With the grownups it was even better – he greeted everyone as usual. Many people replied with the same, especially men. They stopped and shook hands with us.

Davlat repeated after me a lot which is something he didn’t do earlier. Due to this we managed to do many things together.

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was next to us, shared these joys and donated funds to make it happen! As well as to the guests who visited us and helped a lot!