Help with Food
In Russia Star of Hope supports children who currently reside in institutions as well as youth and young adults who grew up in an institution's. We do not support the ideology of Children living in homes and always work towards placing children in a solid family; here is an unedited report from our Russian director Natasha Kirillova, St Petersburg.
Here we send you the pictures from our meeting with ladies-graduates from the orphanages. This month we started a series of classes "Called to be a woman"; focusing on opening up and empowering Christian values of family with emphasis on role of the lady. It's a big problem for absolutely 100% of girls who were brought here to the orphanages - that they have wrong understanding of the aspects of self-worth and God's plan for each of us. The misunderstanding will cause a lot of problems in the future for them if not addressed. We want to use the teaching as a preventive work to get them help to avoid future difficulties.
They had to answer questions, listen to the lesson and discuss things that they see as a problem in their own life. That was the theory part; the second part was a cooking class, aimed to teach them to cook "meals that taste really good, but still are being made from inexpensive base products". The girls were excited to eat what they had prepared; we shared all the recipes at the end of our tea time.
We want to thank Star of Hope for making it possible to help graduates from orphanages to adjust for the independent life!
Nastya Leshkevich was raised up at the orphanage. After we started to work with the family plagued by problems, her mother stopped drinking and regained the right to raise her 4 daughters
It was a miracle for Nastya - to move away from the orphanage back to a home! Up to that time Nastya was 14 years old. In Russia social workers hardly have track on what is going on after the child comes back from the orphanage to the family - it is enough that the mother visits them once in a couple month being not drunk. It was clear for us that Nastya needs more supervision so we have enclosed her into our Graduates project and started to support her and strengthen her.
Thanks to Star of Hope she received both moral and financial support. She has travelled to another country to visit her sponsor, who even though blind, was faithfully helping Nastya and even visited her mother to talk to her! Now Nastya studies in school and takes part in our activities, still receiving such support from SOH. We have found her older sister Vika to be responsible enough to help Nastya and supervise her - Vika does 90% of what the mother must do for Nastya. After all they both are too young to be alone, that's why they like to come over to our studies, share their problems and ask for help!
Natasha
Natalia Kirillova and all Help to Children
Children in Luga, Jukki, Grace center
