Child sponsorship update from St Petersburg

Child sponsor update report from Summer 2008

There are 68 children who live in SOS Children’s Village Pushkin (St Petersburg). Since October 2007 six new children were admitted to the SOS Village, and found their new home there. There are three pre-schoolers in the SOS Village and three more children (those who came recently) will start attending the nursery school from September. Four SOS kids became school pupils last autumn and have recently finished their first school year successfully. This September two kids will start to attend school while six children of the SOS Village finished their school studies in May. They will continue their education and will move to the SOS Youth Facilities where seven are ready to leave and start semi-independent living.

The CV staff has done and continues doing plenty of work to provide children on their care with wide opportunities to compensate for the hard first years of their lives, to get the necessary education, medical treatment and widen their outlook. The CV maintained contact with one of the best children’s clinics in the town. The children regularly have preventive examinations and get medical treatment. The youngsters get assignments to healthy resorts if necessary, where they get medical care and strengthen their health. In December 2007 - January 2008 six children were at a healthy resort in the town of Sochi, at the Black Sea where they got treatment of skin problems. Those children who have special difficulties and needs because of their mental or psychological problems get psychological and psychotherapeutic treatment. The SOS Mothers also are supported by psychologists who help them to find better way to the hearts of the SOS kids.

The children of the CV are pupils of 7 local schools and 3 boys study at the Cadet school. Every child attends a school that corresponds to his abilities and inclinations. The SOS Village staff keeps in touch with the schools’ staff. They have mutual meetings, exchange their educational experience and work for solving difficult problems if needed. The co-operation between the CV and the private school “Humanitarian” continues. Although the parents must pay for their children’s studies, the SOS kids study there for free. The smaller amount of children in each class and innovative methods of teaching gives an opportunity to develop the children’s skills and abilities to the full extent. The “Humanitarian” teachers are always interested in every child’s needs and treat them very attentively.

Children playing games

Many SOS children attend various hobby groups, art studios and classes. Some of the studios work right in the SOS Village, such as dancing class and drama studio. Many youngsters have classes at the art therapy group in the CV. Everybody likes the paintings and other works of the SOS kids which encourages them to regularly take part in various exhibitions with their pictures and win prizes.

All the CV Pushkin kids are absolutely fond of football. One of the reasons for that is that the famous Russian football player Andrey Arshavin (the Ambassador of the SOS Children’s Villages in Russia) of St. Petersburg “Zenit” is a frequent guest of the Children’s Village. This May all the inhabitants of the SOS Village were happy about the victory of their favorite team in the final match of the UEFA Cup. Of course, the children not only are fans but footballers themselves. There are not only the boys playing football at the CV but also a team of girls is kicking it!. We even bring up champions of our own. For example: one of the boys, Daniil (house 12) is professionally engaged in football; he has received two bronze medals for sports achievements and two prizes as the best footballer of the local youth team. The teenage football team won the first prize among the teams of the Pushkin town.

It is very important that the SOS children who start their independent life get settled. The SOS Village successfully co-operates with the «Gimini» excursion office that supports the SOS choosing profession programme for the elder youngsters. Owing to «Gimini» the children had an opportunity to visit various enterprises, plants and companies of St. Petersburg. The youngsters saw the work of Henkel factory, bread-baking plant, meat semi-finished plant “Daria”, greenhouse, Coca-Cola pant, Izchorsky rolling mill, etc. They got to know the people of different occupations and found out more about their work which helped some of them to choose their future profession. Seven adolescents who live in the SOS Youth Facilities in St. Petersburg already have permanent jobs which they combine with their studies.

The excursion office “Gimini” organizes sightseeing tours for our children. From the beginning of the year they have been at the excursion around Christmas time St. Petersburg, famous Oreshek (“Nutlet”) fortress in Shlisselburg town (35 km east of St. Petersburg), originally the border between Russia and Norway was there. Recently the kids visited an ostrich-farm, quite unusual farm for the St. Petersburg region.

Holidays and celebrations

This is the second year when our teenagers in summer do agricultural work at the farm of Pogi village. The adolescents get their first serious working practices, earn their first money, and at the same time spend their vacation in the open country with the kids of their age. The children enjoy it very much there.

As usual, this summer our children will have a good rest during their vacation. Some of the SOS families are planning to go to the South of Russia (to the Black and Azov Seas), 58 children will spend some time in the children’s healthy camp “Druzhba” (Friendship) in the St. Petersburg region, 4 children will go to the Russian Orthodox children’s camp at the Konevets island. Some SOS Families are in friendly terms with the SOS Families from other countries so that this year 2 SOS Families will visit their friends in one of the Belarusian SOS Children’s Villages.

Of course, the SOS Children’s Village Pushkin merrily celebrated its 8th birthday. The festivities took place on May 15th, although it actually had been opened in April. Because April is not a month of good weather in St. Petersburg it was decided to postpone the celebration to May. All the SOS Village friends and local sponsors were the guests of the celebration. Among them were the representatives of the Grand Hotel Europa, the KNAUF corporation, “Krupskaya confectionary”, the local administration and many others. The guests said numerous warm words of congratulation and appreciation. The children, SOS staff and the guests enjoyed the children’s performances and the traditional dinner in the open air.

On behalf of SOS Children’s Villages Russia, all the children on our care, SOS Mothers and the staff we would like to thank you for your kind donations and your help. It is really difficult to find the words that could really measure our gratitude to you for your support. “Many children need many friends” - these words describe perfectly the very core of our work.

That is why your donation is especially significant for us as your kind efforts will help us to present our children the most important gift in this life - a family, a home and sincere care. All our SOS children and their mothers join me in welcoming you once again to visit SOS Children’s Village Pushkin and feel the warmth of the children’s smiles and family atmosphere. We all send the best wishes to you and your loved ones.

Yours sincerely,

Elena Plotnikova
Sponsorship Coordinator
National Office