Summer Camp 2007

THE INTERNATIONAL SUMMER CAMP ROOF 2007

Belskoye Ustye psychoneurological children’s internat, Pskov region, Russia.

camp 2007

July 8 – August 2, 2007, our seventh summer camp took place in Belskoye Ustye’s orphanage. This year 30 volunteers from Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Pskov, Porkhov), Ukraine (Odessa) and Great Britain participated in the project.

Аdministration:

Director: Tatiana Grischuk (Porkhov)

Senior leader: Nadezhda Lebedeva (Pskov)

Supplies manager: Sergei Andreev (Porkhov)

Cook: Aleksandr Petrov (Pskov) Volunteers:

The best part of the volunteer team are students of various Moscow colleges and Oxford University, Great Britain. There were also those who wanted to spend their summer holiday with children from the Belskoye Ustye orphanage. For 8 volunteers this was not their first meeting with these children.

Moscow: Darya Budarina, Anna Gorbacheva Ilya Gulakov, Ksenia Zharikova, Alina Lobzina, Dmitry Markov, Sergei Pirozhenko, Natalya Pirogova, Veronica Ratomskaya, Victoria Romanova Elena Sanina, Aleksey Sivukhin, Vera Skripkina, Darya Solovyova, Artyom Sorokin, Olga Fedorova

St. Petersburg: Anna Iskakova Pskov: Daniil Novikov, Lubov Fedotova

Porkhov: Nikolai Kapustin, Lubov Krylova

Ukraine: Elena Belkina, Yulia Timoschuk

Great Britain: Howard Amos, Olivia Face, Adam Grant, David Hunter, David Powell, Ashley Sherman, Panagyotis Ksenophontos

Summer Camp in Belskoye Ustye Orphanage

In Russia there are around 150 orphanages for children with a mental deficiency. Such institutions do not get sufficient financial support from the state to cover the educational and developmental programmes. Children in their care get very little help – psychological, medical or educational. At the orphanage the children lack intellectual, emotional and sensory stimulation, as well as social interaction. For these reasons, and despite professional and caring staff, children in residential care, such as the Belskoye Ustye internat, automatically fall behind the developmental level of their peers. They develop negative self images, lack emotional control, and are incapable of “normal” social interaction as they live in a closed environment. In most cases, these shortcomings are not linked to their disability, but are merely a consequence of their institutionalisation.

When they turn 18, the children of Belskoye Ustye are sent to adult psycho-neurological internats, where their mental condition degrades very quickly, and where they remain for the rest of their lives.

Such was this Orphanage in 2000, when our fist Summer Camp took place. Since then a lot has changed and here are some of the positive issues:

The state finances educational programmes for up to 30% of orphans

There are handicraft clubs, a dance club and others, all financed by NGOs and some private sponsors

There are two social hostels for graduates, where they learn how to live independently outside of their institution

“Patronate parenting” programs are open

We are happy to state that to a large extent this is due tot the Camp’s efforts, which lets young people from various towns and countries learn about the problem and try to solve it. The camp also gives an opportunity to the local community to realize that the children from the Belskoye Ustye Orphanage deserve as much care and attention as any other children.

The Camp’s Objectives

· To widen children’s horizons and broaden their conceptions about the environment;

· To develop their creative abilities;

· To develop their communication and social interaction skills;

· To build on the children’s self-esteem;

· To help the orphanage stuff learn new game and interaction methods in their work;

· To raise public awareness about the problems of disabled orphaned children.

Camp 2007

In 2007 the Summer Camp was supported not only by the orphanage’s administration, but also by the state structures that oversees Belskoye Ustye – the General Social Development and Labour Department of the Pskov region. For the first time in 7 years this organization no only permitted the Camp, but also took it upon itself to issue invitations for the British part of the volunteer team.

From 2005 on the camp’s administration and team live in the village of Baranovo in the house purchased by ROOF for the Belskoye Ustye projects. In 2005-2006 the house was turned into the Educational Centre “Baranovo” as part of the projects similarly titled. The house served as the base to collect enough materials for working with children, which helped us greatly during the Summer Camp 2006. Unfortunately, in 2007 we did not have access to these resources. Then we decided to emphasize the use of natural resources available in local shops and generally in the environment: package boxes, bottles, sweet wrappers and the like. The large part of material that we brought with us from Moscow was donated to us. We are extremely grateful to everybody who responded to our announcement about help!

Preparation

Just like last year we spent a few days before the camp on orientation of our volunteers and putting them in groups. This year’s orientation was reduced to 2 days only.

On July 8 we conducted communication games, had a talk about peculiarities of children and groups in the orphanage. The volunteers got the information about the daily schedule, the Camp’s and classes timetable.

July 9 in Baranovo we held a meeting with the administration of the Orphanage. At the meeting the director Gennady Mikhailovich Filkin and his colleagues told us some details about the life in the orphanage and answered the volunteers’ questions. On the same day our volunteers got to know who they were to work with.

Opening

The official opening of the Camp took place on July 10, 2007. In the first half of the day volunteers had classes with their main group (team). They had to come up with the name for their team, a logo and a slogan. They also had to decorate their tam’s spot. In the second part of the day the first “Lineika”, a gathering of the groups, where each group presented their name and the slogan. After this the children and their leaders made a presentation for their group. Volunteers presented a creative version of a musical “The Musicians of Bremen”.

Lessons

Each day in the life of the camp started at 10 o’clock with the Lineika, where each team presented their name and slogan. Then the director and the senior leader spoke about the plan for the day and made announcements.

The volunteers came to the Orphanage twice a day: before lunch 9:45-13:00 and after lunch 17:00 – 19:00. They worked with two different groups, one of which was their main group and the other – secondary. Together with their group the volunteers prepared for the festivals and theme days, while with the secondary group they held various activities.

On average volunteers spend 5 hours a day with children. All their free time went on preparation for the classes, festivals, theme days and presentations. Each group of volunteers chose how to spend their teaching time and what to do with the children.

The groups worked in the following directions:

Group 1: sports games (teams and pairs), active games, and table games, developing games (for example, underwater world and diving).

Group 2: developing conceptions about the environment, expanding the vocabulary, developing talks, theme walks, table and active games, the amazing maths, natural materials arts and crafts.

Group 3: making paper-mache, developing talks (fashion, body care, and make-up), theme walks, sports and active games.

Group 4: group crafts, theme walks and camping, sports and active games, game “Treasure hunt”.

arts and crafts competition

Group 5: alternating sports and intellectual games, crafts out of new or unusual materials, active games.

Group 6: cardboard crafts, painting, collage, beading, colouring, and active games.

Group 7: group works, crafts using unusual materials, active games.

Group 8: logorhythmics games, painting and drawing, speech development, developing general and fine motor skills, building on concepts of colour and shape.

Group 9: replenishing sensory deficit, stimulating speech, developing fine motor skills, expanding knowledge in maths, various handicrafts.

Festivals

Just like in 2006 we had festivals and theme days:

July 13 - Circus Day. The groups prepared circus presentations, and in the evening the volunteer circus show blended in with the presentations prepared by children.

camp 2007

July 17 – Nations Day: in the morning each group chose a country and made a presentation about it as well as a quiz question, which took place later on that day. As most volunteers agree this kind of assignment is not appropriate for such category of children.

July 19 – Sports Day: in the morning there were physical exercises, team sports games, and station games for younger teams. In the evening there was an obstacle course. Our volunteers prepared two obstacle courses: for the older and for the younger groups. Each child received a participation medal.

July 21 – Flowers Day: in the morning children made bouquets and wreaths of flowers. Then they presented then and put them up for competition. Each group received a diploma. Volunteers sang a song, prepared a traditional Russian dance and held a Russian dancing game “Spring”.

July 24 – Kindness and Politeness Day: in the morning groups prepared gifts and surprises for other groups, volunteers held talks about how to give and receive presents; about how a polite person behaves. There was also a special “Polite Message Mail Service” And in the evening at Lineika children gave presents to one another. Volunteers prepared a small presentation.

July 26 – Horror Day: in the morning groups prepared horror costumes (for example, ogres, zombies, mummies, vampires) and a presentation of their tribe. After lunch there was a station game, culminating in the Horror Room.

July 28 – Fairy Tale Day: volunteers and children chose a fairy tale, made costumes and a presentation. Then everybody gathered in the assembly hall: each group presented their fairy tale, while the rest had to guess what it was. The volunteers’ fairy tale was presented as a “Global performance” (all characters, people, animals or things, even decorations were acted out by people) all of this made a great impression not only on the children, but also on the administration of the Orphanage.

Camping

After each festival volunteers issued a newspaper which was presented at the Lineika.

During the Summer Camp there were three discos, herbs collection for a crafts club activities (July 12), a night out camping with Groups 1 and 2, and daytime camping outings with the other groups.

Special thanks to Dmitry Markov and Artyom Sorokin for the graffiti mural on the boiler’s wall; to Ksenia Zharikova for organizing the outing with the young adult groups.

Closing

On August 1 was the official closing of our Summer Camp. In the morning there was the Last Lineika with the final results of the activities of the Camp. Representatives of the administration of the Belskoye Ustye Orphanage and the Camp spoke at the Lineika and also gave awards to each team. Music teacher Aleksey Victorovich and choreographer Nadezhda Georgievna organized a concert of 16 numbers for the children. The volunteers presented a creative version of “Cinderella”.

volunteers show

In the evening there was an exhibition of children’s work and the “Good-bye” disco.

The media

In 2007 we worked closely with Pskov mass media. The information about the opening of the Camp was published in the Pskov News Feed. During the Camp we were mentioned twice by the Porkhov Messenger. The Report, written by a volunteer and published on the Pskov News Feed was actively discussed by the visitors of the web-site. http://pln-pskov.ru/society/44484.html

After the Camp we held an exhibition of photographs, made by Dmitry Markov during the Programme, in the Pobeda Cinema of Pskov. It helped raise 25 thousand roubles for the New Year celebration in Belskoye Ustye orphanage. http://www.carpediemphotos.ru/gallery-18.html

Thank you

We are thankful to all people who helped up organise Summer Camp 2007

Special thanks to Ernst and Young for their continuous financial support of our project

We are also grateful to everyone who found the time and opportunity to support Summer Camp 2007 by donating stationery supplies, various arts and crafts materials, developing games, and by helping us raise funds and awareness about this project

We are grateful to our partners - the administration of the Belskoye Ustye Orphanage, the Pskov Regional Charity "Rostok", the Pskov branch of the Russian Children's Foundation, and personally Dmitry Markov and Daniil Novikov.

Conclusion

The Summer Camp for the children of the Belskoye Ustye Orphanage is not only a means of organizing their free time, the Orphanage is part of a greater project. The lessons and communication with the volunteers is only a small step in the development of the children.

This whole month gave the children unforgettable impressions, which will last them for the next half a year. They will wait the other half, they will wait for their friends from various places of the world…

Conclusion

camp 2007

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