Starting work in Belskoye-Ustye, 2001

In autumn 2001 ROOF won an USAID grant administered through the Assistance to Russian Orphans (ARO) programme. The programme focused on a social-integration project in the Psycho-Neurological Internat in Belskoye-Ustye near the city of Pskov. For 10 months our team worked with local families in a weekend foster-family programme and opened a social-hotel for orphanage graduates. Now orphanage graduates can move into the social hotel programme rather than on to an adult institution, at the age of 18.

In early 2003 ROOF received an additional grant from Kindercare New Zealand, and is in the process of broadening the original social hotel programme to take additional young adults from the orphanage as they graduate. The weekend foster programme also continued on its own momentum after the initial 10-month USAID funding period.

The prejudices against orphans so ingrained in Russian society are even more pronounced when dealing with children from this kind of orphanage. An overwhelming attitude prevails that the children are somehow 'uneducable' and do not have a place within normal society. ROOF summer camps have began to break down this barrier with the inclusion of a number of local volunteers who work with the children for several weeks each year.

ROOF also runs year-long educational programmes in the orphanage.

For the first time this project has given some of the orphanage children the opportunity to experience normal family life and to begin to develop bonds with adults. Carefully chosen local families provide a home for the children at the weekend and during holidays and include them in all aspects of daily family life. This not only opens the children's eyes to life outside the orphanage but it also offers the local community a vital opportunity to get to know children who were previously feared due to their 'differences'. During the initial phase of the weekend foster programme, ach family was visited regularly by a social worker who addressed any problems or questions raised by family members or the children, and who provided general support for all those participating in the project.

For the six older teenagers living in the social hotel, the project is more than a change of residence - it is a lifeline. All six have now reached the age of 18, the age at which they would normally have to leave the orphanage and move to an adult institution, denying them the opportunity to education or employment. One of four experienced social workers is on hand at all times to provide a positive adult role-model for the young people and teach them by example about living independently, to help them find employment and educational opportunities. We expect that most graduates will spend about five years living in the social hotel and will then be ready to take care of themselves in society.

Another, perhaps more vital aspect of the programme's goals, is to affect the system of diagnosis through which all of the children have passed before their placement in the Internat. Children in psycho-neurological orphanages are diagnosed as 'oligophrenic' or 'weak-minded', are not given access to education and are expected to spend their lives in the institutional system, despite the fact that many are condemned to these diagnoses for behavioural reasons and emotional instability that has nothing to do with their level of intelligence. The young people who move into ROOF's social hotels are tested by a medical commission of psychologists and psychiatrists who often remove their original diagnoses. Our goal is to prove that young adults who have grown up in psycho-neurological orphanages can and should have the rights of any other Russian citizen, given that most are entirely capable and have simply been deprived of the opportunities others have quite naturally as they grow up.

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