The Velikiye Luki Orphanage-school, residential house for

The Velikiye Luki Orphanage-school, residential house for adolescents
Velikiye Luki is a town in the southern part of the Pskov Oblast in the North-West Russia with a
population of about 100.000 people. The Orphanage-school is the only institution in the town and its
neighbour villages for children “deprived of parental care”. It is divided into two parts: a house with a
boarding school for children under 14 years old and a residential home for 14-21 years old adolescents.
82 children live in the first house, where they get the kindergarten and primary school education.
Children from the fifth grade on attend local schools. 41 teenagers live in the second house together
wih 8 young men and women, who have already finished school and stay at the house to get support in
the first years of their adult life.
In the second house adolescents live in rooms for 3 to 4 people and are divided into 6 groups
according to their age. Each group has 7 to 9 members, there is a class room to do homework and a
recreational room. A separate mentor cares for each group (accompanying it all its years in the house),
along with night child care workers, a psychologist and a number of teachers of additional education.
Most of the educators have been working here already for a long time, so the team is quite stable.
Boys and girls come to the house after their parents passed away or were deprived of parental
rights. Often the father is unknown, the mother is alcoholic or inprisoned. Adolescents are allowed to
visit their families, grandparents or other relatives. Of course, adoption is encouraged, but after 14
years old it is a very rare case.
The main problem the orphanage faces is preparing children for the adult life. The life in the
orphanage itself is well-organised, adolescents are quite satisfied with it and a lot of outside observers
find the situation good enough. However, statistics concerning the future of the alumni is not
encouraging: a lot of them become criminals and alcoholics. We seek ways to improve this situation.
One way is to bring living conditions in the orphanage closer to the home ones: leave more
room for personal, not communal, life and open space for self-organized activities.
“Home kitchen” project
Currently boys and girls eat in the house canteen. Meals are prepared by the professional cooks,
so adolescents only need to set the table and take food. Sometimes cooking activities are organized, but
the facilities of the canteen kitchen are nothing like those of the home kitchen. Only tea can be
prepared in the recreational rooms in a cozy atmosphere.
The “home kitchen” project aims to equip a kitchen in a separate room, big enough for 12
people, but resembling a family home kitchen. It would be a place, where adolescents can learn to cook
and enjoy the “kitchen life” with each other. There are enough mentors ready to share their skills and
special cooking courses could be organised.
Financial situation and the project budget
We ask charity organisations for the financial help, since the State funding is not sufficient. In
the year 2012 the orphanage gets per child 182 rubles (€4,5) per day for the food together with 7800
rubles (ca. €200) per year for the clothes and other expenses. All the investments in reparatory works or
equipment are not financed on the regular basis, but should pass an approval in the administration of
the Pskov Oblast. Since there are a lot of orphanages in the region and the Oblast funding on social
issues is not big enough, only the most urgent investments are approved. E.g., the last investment was
“current repairs according to fire regulation” - walls painting was changed in the whole house to suit
new fire regulation. All the “additional investments” are being constantly disapproved.
To equip the kitchen furniture, home appliances and dinnerware are needed. We have planned
an ordinary kitchen without special items and asked for bills in the wholsale shops.
Items
Price (rubles)
Price (euro)
Kitchen furniture
35.312
883
Home appliances
41860
1047
Dinnerware
22029
551
Total
99201
2481
calculated with 40 rubles/euro
Irina Gololobova,
Director of the Orphanage-school
19 September 2012