ROOF – Children's Home Society Abilitation Centre

Since summer 2000, the Russian Orphan Opportunity Fund (ROOF) has been running educational and abilitation-related programmes in the psycho-neurological orphanage in Belskoye-Ustye, 20 km from the nearby town of Porkhov, Pskov Oblast. In Russia's psycho-neurological orphanages the children are given no education, despite the fact that many are 'bumped' down from normal orphanages due not to lack of intelligence, but because of behavioural or other problems entirely unrelated to capability to learn. One girl at Belskoye-Ustye is there because she has diabetes, for instance.

The result is a large number of children growing to young adulthood entirely unready to care for themselves — therefore requiring further institutionalisation. The current system shifts these young adults directly into mental institutions or homes for the elderly, in which the life expectancy is very low and in which they are entirely deprived of any opportunity to develop themselves as individuals. ROOF believes strongly that this is unfair to the vast majority of young adults from psycho-neurological orphanages, who would be entirely capable of taking care of themselves in society if given special support at this stage.

For just such children ROOF has opened an 'Abilitation Centre' — an alternative to transfer to an adult institution for graduates of the Belskoye-Ustye internat.

Listen to what Julia Ivanova, 19, has to say about life at the adult institution: 'I lived for one year at the adult Internat at Pervomayskaya which is a mental institution and home for the elderly. I came to Pervomayskaya from the Belskoye-Ustye internat where I had lived for 7 years. Life at Pervomayskaya was scary for me. The majority of the 300 or so people who live there are very old, and a great number cannot get out of bed. Those of us who are younger had to care for them. When the elderly would die I had to wash the bodies and prepare them in the morgue. It made me very upset.'

The Abilitation Center houses up to 6 young adults (and the adults who help them make their transfer into life in society) at any one time. The project is completely funded by the generous gifts of private sponsors like you.

ROOF is currently searching for a couple who will act as 'live in' house parents (not without the requisite weekends and annual leave!) who will work on cooking, personal hygiene, budgeting, etc. with the graduates. These 'house parents' will also be responsible for helping the young adults to find employment so that they can gradually become responsible for taking care of themselves. The Abilitation Centre budget is designed to take into account progressive assumption of responsibility (by the graduates themselves) for their own costs of food, medicine, and other personal expenses. Until house parents are found, ROOF has employed a rotation of carers who spend days and nights with the group of young adults.

The Abilitation Centre provides a domestic environment, 24-hour guidance and assistance in finding employment. Over a period of around five years the house occupants will gradually assume more and more responsibility themselves, relying less on the carers.

On graduating from Belskoye Ustye internat, these young people desperately need practical training in money and budgeting, manners, cooking and healthy eating, cleaning, personal hygiene and so on… All the things that we take for granted that we know how to do, understand and accustomed to are all new for these children when they leave the orphanage. It is amazing, all things considered, how quickly the children respond to their new environment and responsibilities. The results are immediate and tangible.

Julia (left) and Sveta (right) with Abilitation Centre visitor Elizabeth Williams (6 months)

The Abilitation Centre is on a 1200 sq. metre plot which affords room for an ample garden with potatoes, vegetables of all sorts, apple and cherry trees, raspberries, blackberries, red and black currents. The residents grow food during the summer for canning and pantry storage during the winter. A shed in the garden houses three ducks which produce two to three large eggs per day. All this considerably reduces living costs.

A lot of hard work has gone into making the house cosy and practical. The house has a small kitchen with a wood burning stove; there are also two more upright stoves in the two bedrooms, which keep the house warm through the winter. There is a large communal room – the axis around which this small and already established community revolves.

These young adults receive state 'pensions' of 1800 RUR per month (because they are classed as 'invalids'). The pensions are useful in helping them to learn budgeting of personal funds before they find gainful employment. Sveta has already found a job in a local kindergarten – she has been helping to prepare food there and helping with the children since early summer. Even those who have not yet found steady work are never left doing nothing; there is much to be done in the house – cleaning, maintenance, renovations, gardening and so on. And of course there is some time for usual recreational activities – walking into town, watching television and sitting by the river, which is very close.

In addition to preparing the young adults for independent living, ROOF also wishes to fund teachers to help the graduates, who at best received extremely minimal education in Belskoye Ustye. Regular lessons boost their level of general education, not only making them more employable but also increasing levels of self-esteem.

This Abilitation Centre plays a crucial part in changing the futures of the Belskoye-Ustye graduates. This is not just investing in a child's future, this is creating a future for a child. Furthermore, it challenges the existing system, illustrating with tangible examples how these young people are entirely capable of making a success of life. The Centre is exactly what these children need to transition from the institutionalised child to the independent adult – a chance to escape an unfortunate fate; a chance to become an independent, responsible individual; a chance to live.

Abilitation Centre Programme Manager: Sergey Andreyev