For volunteers

The St Petersburg charity Parents Bridge, under different names and structures, has been around since the late 1980s. It is a social organization for the parents and legal guardians of disabled children and/or large families – those who are dedicated to the noble mission of giving every child a life worth living.

Today Parents Bridge is a team of like-minded people who strive to save children from becoming orphans. The mission of the organization is to help children who have lost parental care in finding a new adoptive family. Another objective is to help children who are in a difficult situation and in danger of losing their family – the organization helps them to preserve family ties.

In order to reach these objectives, the staff of the fund train and assist prospective adoptive parents, and support families with adopted children and children who are in difficult situations. They seek to work together with government and non-governmental organizations in developing programs that will allow for solutions to the problems of orphans in St.-Petersburg and all of Russia.

Angels with Broken Wings Program

Our goal is to assist orphans and children who lack parental care. Within this program is a special service that recruits and trains parents wanting to accept abandoned children, including those with mental disabilities, into their families. The adoptive family gets social, medical and psychological support as they take care of the children. 350 children without parental support have found a family with the help of the Fund. The program has been in place since 1997.

The Sunshine Program (Solnechny krug)

The goal is to prevent critical situations in adoptive families and prevent further rejection. This program supports families of adopted children. In the last 14 years, we have had great success with our professional service providing social, medical, psychological, educational assistance to families.

From Despair to Hope Program

The goal is to keep families together. The project provides urgent help to families in critical conditions, for parents on the verge of giving up their biological or adopted children. There are two aspects to this program – to help families with adopted children and assist women with small children.

Bridge to Children of Russia Program

Goals: to promote family values in society; educating society about the problems of children who need the support of the government and community; helping families stay together, placing children in families; sharing professional experience and working with other organizations to these ends.

Fund Contact Information:

St Petersburg Social Charity Fund Parents Bridge
Address: 30G, Mokhovaya, St.Petersburg, 191014
Legal address: Apt. 33, 80/2, Fontanka Embankment, St.Petersburg, 191180
phone (812) 272-68-51, 719-74-17
phone/fax: (812) 272-23-64

e-mail:
general questions: info@rodmost.ru
development, social advertisement, campaign suggestions, etc.: pr@rodmost.ru

web-site: www.rodmost.ru

How you can help us:

1. Ruble bank account:
СПб ОБФ «Родительский Мост»
ИНН 7825362942
КПП 784001001
Юр. адрес: 190180 Фонтанки р. наб., д. 80/2 кв. 33
р/сч 40703810110000000213
в Красногвардейском филиале ОАО «Банк ВТБ Северо-Запад»
к/сч 30101810200000000791
БИК 044030791
Код по ОКПО 45514877
Код по ОКОНХ 98600
Назначение платежа: «Безвозмездное благотворительное пожертвование на развитие программ Фонда».

2. Foreign currency bank account:
Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, New York, USA
SWIFT code: BKTR US 33
Account 04097778
Baltiyskiy Bank, St.Petersburg, Russia
SWIFT code: BABJ RU 2P
in favour "PARENTS BRIDGE"
Account 40703840200000108917

Don't forget to specify the assignment of the payment: Gratuitous charitable donation under the project "Bridge to children of Russia"

3. On our web-site www.rodmost.ru you can make donations through electronic transfers YandexMoney

Road Home is a project of developing family forms of educating children left without parental support and aimed at helping orphans and foster families in St. Petersburg.
As of today, about 170,000 children are left without parental care and are being brought up in state-run establishments. As they leave their orphanages though they face a need to lead an independent life they are not ready for, having problems to find a good vocation for a profession, and as a whole find their own place in life. Most importantly, without proper experience as to what family is, former pupils of orphanages are unable to create their own normal family.
We decided to help orphan children find their own families, and this is what this project is conceived for. We thought it would expedient to congregate all the information about the laws, family forms of education, about the children themselves and their needs, as well as information about those foster families who have already adopted children, so that anyone who visits the website could find answers to questions related to adopted children.
Tasks requiring assistance without considerable investment:

• Translators. The project needs translations into foreign languages of several web pages, mostly into English, German, French and Finnish.
• Designers. We need artistic setting work to be done – banners, placards, reference and campaigning materials.
• Web designers and webmasters. We need developers of web sites, banners, supporting and updating of materials, technical maintenance for getting registered in search engines, catalogues, banner and links exchange programmes with other sites.

If you can place a short announcement about our Project in a newspaper, magazine or your web page, we’ll be just happy.

•   Handouts for children and grown-ups.If you think you have writing talent, we’ll be very grateful for your short stories, fairy-tales for foster children – on topics assigned by psychologists, or processing draft stuff written by psychologists, teachers and other specialists, into articles.
• ОExperienced foster parents and legal guardians as well as adoptive parents can help by sending articles and short stories about their experience in bringing up children and how they solved their complex situations.

Minimal expenditure assistance

If you are just pressed for time but still wish to partake in our cause, you still can help – financially and organizationally.
Organisational expenses. Normally what we need is: printing and copying A4 paper, A4 plastic envelopes, CD printing cartridges, CD binding envelopes , holders, file folders etc.
You can either hand in your cash in person, having agreed by email or phone where you can meet us, or by transferring your money by an electronic payment means, to Yandex Money account 41001195985245. It is also possible to transfer money to our bank account, however, we would ask you to indicate the exact purpose of your transfer.

Яндекс.Деньги - 41001195985245

Besides, if you can help manufacture something at your enterprise for free or really cheap, we would appreciate that. We are mostly keen on having our stuff printed, including publications, disks, digital images, cards, postcards, badges, placards and various advertising materials and accessories, and much more.

Reports:
Every contributing participant gets a personal easy-to-understand report with the contributor’s personal data, his task described and results obtained. The primary report is backed by financial documents, texts of agreements and, if necessary, pictures of the entries, etc. This private report is included into the general public report without source documents published on the web site and is published by other means, unless the contributor objects.

CONTACTS:

ALEKSANDRA ALEKSANDROVA
Tel.: +7 9219851503

ALEKSANDR KOVALEV
Tel.: +7 9516452808

ALEKSEY RUDOV
Tel.: +7 (495)4240193 (work)

GENERAL INQUIRIES:

A charity Artistic Association “Let Children Celebrate” unites enterprising people who organise and hold charity events, including celebrations, concerts, performances, movies, shows, sports shows, artistic competitions etc, for orphans from orphanages and boarding schools from St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region. The association aims at uniting young creative activists from St. Petersburg in their effort to lend assistance in cultural education and spiritual enrichment of children left without parental support.
In the past 18 months since the association started to work, our volunteers have visited orphanages in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region, among them Ivan-Gorod, Pikalevo, Siversk, Volkhov, Tolmachevo and others, rewarded with smiles from children who have lost the habit of smiling. We have staged more than 100 festive and cultural events, many of which have become traditional and are held regularly. More than once we organised birthday parties for orphans, photo sessions, fairs, attending theatre performances, concerts and shows. We also do healing with movies, give advice on vocations, school farewell parties and, of course, regular calendar dates celebrations.

In the past six months we have been promoting a campaign “Congratulate an Orphan on his/her Birthday”. Following the agreements with the managers of 11 orphanages and boarding schools in Russia, more than 500 orphan children receive parcels with presents meant exclusively for them as well as many birthday cards. This campaign enables every activists from our association to bring celebration to the life of children.

In 2007/08, within the Photo Session in an Orphanage campaign, we made trips to four orphanages, with professional and amateur photographers and our volunteers taking part. Many costumes were taken along, and the children were engaged in artistic and exciting process of artistic embodiments and games, resulting in thousands of pictures taken of children and presented to them.
In 2009 we held our sixth Fair in an Orphanage. This event helps the children better comprehend the realities of life beyond the walls of their homes. They could use their “earned” currency (for evaluation marks at school and for taking parts in the concerts) purchase decorations, stationery and games. We use the fair as a role game to help the children develop their real-life communication and co-operation skills.
Our further plans include shooting a documentary about prominent people and celebrities in various fields who were brought up in orphanages. It is planned to show how these people managed to overcome the hardships and achieve what they achieved. The film will be distributed in orphanages and is meant to give hope to the children and show that life is not so hopeless and does not stop beyond the orphanage walls, and the children can achieve anything, should they only wish so.
Among the biggest events planned by our association is staging of figure-skating tale Fiery Bird after traditional Russian folk tales, with prominent Russian figure-skating stars, sophisticated stills, bright and distinguished costumes and special effects. The performances is planned as a charity campaign for orphan children who reside in orphanages and boarding schools. Several thousand children from dozens of orphanages will have a unique opportunity to see this performance. Young spectators will be particularly attended – they will be taken from their temporary homes to the venues and back, with free admission.
If you wish to help, but have no idea how and what with, let’s think about it together. For every one who sincerely wants to help children we can find what to do in our organisation.
Let’s start with a question: Where do you and your friends work? Can it be so that your organisation can afford help us and you can get us in touch with your management? Or perhaps you and your friends work for a corporation and you have a representation in Russia? Could you ask for a moneyed assistance to celebrations staged in orphanages? Could your organisation become our sponsor? We often buy presents for orphans or take the children to cafes, when we bring them to St. Petersburg from elsewhere in Leningrad Region. Or, we print photos from the photo sessions. All that requires money.
Or perhaps you and your friends work at school? We have pen pals programmes to help orphans establish contacts with their coevals from other schools. You could help organise this in your school.
Do you or your friends work in a theatre or a cinema or a circus or a museum? Then you could possible arrange with your managers to provide free tickets to orphans and help taking them there. Do you work as a psychologist? You and we could work jointly on interesting psychological games for children in orphanages and carry them out, once or on a regular basis.
Whatever you do, you could take part in our campaign of rendering assistance in choosing a profession by teenagers from orphanages and in meeting professionals from various fields.
If, however, you are so busy that you can’t afford much time for events for children, you could still take part in our permanent campaign “Congratulate an Orphan on his/her Birthday”, for which all you have to do is just buy a post card, once a month, write kind words on it, choose a name from a list on our forum and post your card.
If you’re a resident of St. Petersburg and wish to contribute artistically in our campaigns, you could become an actor, a director, a scene-painter, a costumier, or a sound engineer in our shows planned to be staged for tours to orphanages in St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region.

Do write to us!
http://www.prazdni.com
E-mailto:
Call: +7(904)6049393 Anna
+7(905)2107109 Yelena

The Crisis Center For Children is a charitable social organization. Its key purposes are to prevent and fight against child neglect, abandonment and social orphanhood, and to protect children’s rights. The CCFC was formed in March 2001. Its first project was a telephone counseling line.

More than 7,000 people a year use the telephone counseling line daily to talk about their interpersonal relations, the problems of raising children, family conflicts, violence, or violation of rights among others. At present the telephone line works 24/7.

“Extra Hot Meals” – this is another project for children from poor families and abandoned children. Five days a week, 30 children get cooked meals. This program includes children from very low-income families and children living on the street. The social follow-up service was formed as a part of this project. The task of the social workers is to find out what caused the unfortunate situations in their families or child neglect, and to take measures aimed at rehabilitating these children.

In October 2003, the CCFC opened the Center of Social Rehabilitation for Street Children. This project includes a psychologist and two experienced teachers who provide active cultural and educational development for children. They want to ensure the children enjoy their time at the center; they try to teach them the basic norms of social behaviour and to give them an alternative to spending time out in the streets.

The next project opened by the CCFC was the “Mobile School”. As we know, street children often lose contact with school and give up their studies. Quite often, even children living in families don’t attend school for a while and lag behind in their studies. The task of the Mobile School is to make up for the pedagogical gap for such children. It provides individual studies of basic school subjects with teachers to enable them to receive the state school certificate according to the external studies system. In order to do it, the CCFC has an agreement with School #336 of the Nevsky District on cooperation and interaction. The Mobile School is designed for a group of three to ten children. Its purpose is to bring children back to school. They can either go to classes according to their age or receive the school certificate enabling them to enter a college.

The CCFC has opened a new project called the “Room of Joy” for families with children who have communication problems and autism. They have difficulties in communicating with the world around them and with socializing. For many reasons these families have been pushed beyond the boundaries of “normal” society where they don’t feel free and accepted. This project provides a place where these parents and children feel accepted and supported, not as much by therapists, but by other people who volunteer to participate in the lives of these families.

“Night Hotel” – this project is aimed at providing a comfortable night’s sleep for 10 to 12 children or teenagers. This group includes children who attend the CCFC and who are ready for radical changes in their lives but don’t have the opportunity to stay at home. The purpose of this project is to complete the circle of the social protection for all street children who turned to the CCFC and who are willing to change their lives.

As of May 2006 the CCFC has been running the Family Center project aimed at strengthening families and promoting traditional family values and prevention of child neglect and abandonment.

The center has been running the following activities:

• Organizing and running the monthly cultural and educational meetings for families.
• Helping parents who have experienced the loss of children.
• Helping foster families.

“Ciliba” – In summer a group of “tough” teenagers accompanied by adults travels to the town of Kotlas, in the Archangelsk Region, to help in restoring the 14th century monastery. The objective of this project is to combine the teenagers’ summer holidays with real work in order to acquaint them with the cultural background of Russia and to help them adopt the moral need for labour. At the same time the teenagers enjoy their time in the ecologically clean area where their health improves as well.

The Crisis Center For Children needs support. We need funds to maintain the fully-fledged work of our projects. The children in our care are the socially vulnerable groups of population, i.e. children living on the streets, those living with HIV, families in difficult situations, children with autism and people with limited abilities.

We will be grateful for any kind of support, including financial assistance as well as designated help to children and families.

The bank details for the foreign currency transfer are the following:

CRISIS CENTER FOR CHILDREN
BANK SANKT-PETERSBURG OAO
Moskovsky outlet
Transit foreign currency account # 40703840016000203475 USD
Transit foreign currency account # 40703978616000203475 EUR

The ‘Unikum’ shelter is a private household in the village of Kokoshkino near Moscow. It is a non-profit organization run by volunteers who are driven by one single goal – to create conditions for old and sick horses to live out their final days in a loving and caring environment, and to give them the much-needed care and medical treatment, affection and tenderness.

Attempts to register the shelter as an official charitable organization have so far failed because doing so doesn’t offer any prospect of gaining profit. The shelter was founded by Lydia V. Ospinnikova. It is located in the territory of her summer cottage. Enthusiasts have built three small stables on it, a roofed loft-area, a training ground for exercise and administrative buildings.

The horse shelter survives on volunteer donations. Volunteers also take care of the horses. The shelter has its own blacksmith and a veterinary doctor who work with our horses free of charge. The shelter’s activists raise funds for the fodder, medicine, sawdust and the acquisition of new tenants. Sick, broken and maimed animals are not given away for free. As a rule, they are sold. However, the shelter has three horses of which their former owners were ready to get rid for free. They were in a very bad physical condition.

If you want to help the ‘Unikum’ inmates to live the rest of their lives in peace and comfort, we would welcome any help. We badly need:

• Oats and hay (suppliers, please phone!)
• Sawdust
• Medicine
• Materials to repair the stables
• Equipment in good condition, and many other things!

E-mail us!

The regional humanitarian organization ‘Nochlezhka’ (the night shelter) has been helping the homeless – the most deprived group of the population who live in abysmal conditions - for 18 years. More than 50,000 people in St. Petersburg don’t have a home. The purpose of this organization is to reduce the number of homeless in the city and improve their living standards by protecting their rights. The organization also lobbies for changes in local and federal laws and develops welfare programs for the homeless in St. Petersburg and other parts of Russia.

Guidelines of activities
• Social aid to the homeless in St. Petersburg.
• Advocacy of and lobbying for amendments to existing legislation.
• Work through the Internet: spreading the best methods of work with the homeless to other Russian regions.
• Working with public opinion to raise social awareness.

The program and services provided by ‘Nochlezhka’:

Daytime services for the homeless.
Any homeless person can seek help from a social consultant from 10:00 to 17:00 on weekdays. The adviser will help restore identity papers and get medical aid; s/he will prepare documents for receiving a pension and disability benefits, help finding employment, organize a trip back home and render assistance in finding relatives. Any homeless person can get clean clothes and is entitled to daily hot meals from 10:00 in the morning until 14:00 in the afternoon. A qualified nurse will treat any wounds and will send the attendee for disinfection.

A shelter for the homeless.
The shelter provides beds for the night for any homeless person. It can accommodate twelve women and 40 men. During the first meeting, a social consultant offers an individual social rehabilitation plan to each needy person. S/he and the shelter sign a three-month contract which can be extended if necessary. Entry to the shelter is daily from 20:00 to 23:00. The tenants are required to leave the shelter before 10:00 in the morning.

‘A Halfway House’ is a centre for the social and psychological rehabilitation of homeless persons with addiction to chemical agents.

A homeless person who decides to get rid of dependence on alcohol can become a member of a rehabilitation program which is underway in one of the apartments in the shelter.

A night bus.

Five days a week, from 19:00 to 24:00, two specially-equipped minibuses go on night duty in the city. They make stops in specially-designated places. The bus routes cover the northern and southern outskirts of St. Petersburg. Up to 250 people turn to them for help every night. They include the homeless, street kids and pensioners. Anyone who turns for help gets hot tea and food. More than 60 volunteers are involved in this project. The free food is donated by businessmen and administration officials from various districts of St. Petersburg.

«Heating stations».
Each night in the cold season (November to April) a homeless person can ask for and get a night’s shelter, hot supper and a consultation from a social worker starting from 9pm. At 8 o’clock each morning, the tenant gets a hot breakfast and undergoes a medical examination. He or she gets a 60-square-meter winter army tent with an individual stove from the heating station.

Advocacy and lobbying for amendments to existing legislation.

At a daily meeting, the organization’s lawyer gives hints to the homeless on how to settle disputable issues through the courts. We defend these people against the bodies of executive power. We are doing a great deal of work to analyze existing laws, develop and lobby for local and federal laws related to the problems of the homeless:

Working with the public opinion is designed to increase tolerance and social responsibility.

Social advertising, films, street events, concerts in clubs, charity parties, photo exhibitions, the publication of books, articles in the press, televised interviews and other actions are aimed at making the general public grasp the scale and causes of homelessness, and urge it to make a contribution to the solution of this thorny problem.

We invite volunteers to permanent projects and unique events. Our organization offers practical training to Russian and foreign students. Additional incentives are created for young volunteers in the form of parties and free entry to concerts at St. Petersburg night clubs.

For those who you want to help:
Contact information
Regional Humanitarian Organization for the Homeless ‘Nochlezhka’
192007, St. Petersburg
Borovaya Street, 122 B
Tel/Fax: +7 (812) 380 50 44
E-mail: help@homeless.ru, office@homeless.ru
http://www.homeless.ru

The International Volunteer Center has existed as one of the main programs of the Environmental Education Center Zapovedniks (Reserves), or ECZ, since 2002.

From 2003 to 2006, we collaborated in the international volunteer field in partnerships with SFERA (ex-NNVS). Since 2008 we have been an official partner of Service Civil International (SCI www.sciint.org)

Our main aim is to promote ideas of peace, humanism and respect for nature among young people in Russia and all over the world through international volunteer activity.

We help Russian volunteers to participate in International projects all over the world, and host international volunteers in our ENVI-work camps in National Parks and Nature Reserves. We closely co-operate with all 141 Russian Federal Protected Areas to find interesting and fruitful work for volunteers to participate in for the protection of Russian nature.

Since 2002, over 600 Russian volunteers have taken part in work camps abroad.

In our camps we combine these important principles:
- help protected areas
- educate participants about the environment
- open Russian culture and traditions to volunteers
- intercultural and international exchanges.

What do the volunteers do? Help to develop ecological trails, work with visitors, conduct scientific research and monitoring, clean forests and streams, organize ecological events for tourists and locals, and much more…

Volunteers not only perform work - they interact with locals, hike, swim, climb, see wonderful waterfalls and breathtaking glaciers, and are introduced to native flora and fauna.

If you want to...
• contribute to and protect the environment
• spend your free time doing good and useful things
• explore a new country, culture and traditions
• find new friends worldwide
… Just join us!!!

We’re open for co-operation with those who are interested in organizing and participating in ENVI work camps, internships, workshops, bilateral or multilateral projects...
Visit our page

We help children in problem families. Children raised in such families do not always get parental love and care. They don’t get proper meals, they miss school classes and are subject to emotional and physical violence.
Our task is to preserve and strengthen problem families and not to let these children find themselves in the street or in an orphanage.
‘The Warm Home’ offers integrated material, psychological, social and legal assistance to problem families. We teach parents to take care of their children and help them to overcome the hardships of everyday life. We hold creative classes and play games with the kids, we help them improve relations with their parents and in many cases to come to love them again. We teach them how to adapt themselves in a company of friends and classmates. Together, we go to theatres and museum; in summer we go to a tent camp.

«The Warm Home» works with children from risky families:
• Low-income families
• Families with many children
• Families in which children are raised by foster parents
• Families in which parents were raised in orphanages
• Families in which parents have strong alcoholic addiction
• Families in which parents are invalids

In 2008 “The Warm Home” rendered social assistance to more than 400 parents and children. 233 children from 115 families underwent intensive training at weekly classes held in family groups. We arranged 22 rehabilitation and recreation events for 383 people, while 139 people took part in eight family parties. Twenty-five families who were in a protracted crisis situation and needed individual approach received integrated material, psychological and social aid. More than 800 food items worth 170,000 rubles were handed out to the needy. “The Warm Home” held six seminars for 130 future social welfare workers.

We would be grateful for any aid and help, including:
• Food, personal hygiene products, toys, clothes and bed linen.
• Assistance in organization of leisure time for families (excursions, outings, walks, picnics and visits to theatres)
• Targeted material aid to families
• Salaries to experts hired by the foundation (psychologists, social workers and coaches);
• Target support for special projects organized by the Foundation (an art therapy program, a summer camp, centers that receive and distribute humanitarian relief aid)
• Volunteers

Our requisites
Recipient:
The Warm Home Charity Foundation for Children
The purpose of payment:
Charitable donation – this wording is a must!

The foundation’s address:
OUR ADDRESS:
191187, St. Petersburg
Tchaikovsky Street, 1, lit 1, room 11
(entrance from the Fyodor Oruzheinik Street)
Tel/fax: 275-81-65
www.warm-home.spb.ru

Requisites:
INN 7811340000 (individual taxpayer’s number)
KPP: 784101001

р/с 40703810700000000264 (settlement account)
в OAO «BALTINVESTBANK»
к/с 30101810500000000705 (correspondence account)
БИК 044030705 (bank identification code)

Charitable donations are exempt from the VAT.
You can load or print a filled form with the Warm House requisites, write in the sum of your donation and pay it at any bank. http://www.domgdeteplo.ru/images/kvitancii/kvitok.pdf

YANDEX- Money to account 4100177483407

The Church of St. Panteleimon the Healer and the International Charitable Fund “Children of the World” are conducting a charity drive called “I believe in miracles”. The aim of the action is to raise funds for the overhaul of the quarters provided for the Center for Infirm Children’s Support and Leisure Activities by the Regional Children’s Hospital of Kaliningrad.

Most of the little patients need long-term treatment. Far from their homes, families and friends they are under severe stress. The children’s recovery greatly depends on their emotional state. It is very important for a child in a difficult situation to experience positive emotions, to do his/her best to fight the disease and not to lose hope of recovery.

For these reasons, the Regional Children’s Hospital of Kaliningrad formed the Center for Support and Leisure Activities for Infirm Children, where children play, get involved in art therapy, music and creative work. It gives them a diversion from their hospital routine and helps them feel happy at least for some time. The activities in the Center are supervised by volunteers from among the parishioners of the hospital Church of St. Panteleimon.

Presently, the activities in the Center are carried out in the church where there are only 3 square meters available, which is definitely not enough to engage all the patients. The hospital has provided the Centre with space of 80 square meters, but this is in an emergency condition. It requires overhauling, at an estimated cost of 1.3 million rubles.

It will be very difficult to source such a lot of money as is required for the overhaul, but if each of us donates a small part of what is needed, it will work out with God’s help.

The International Charitable Fund “Children of the World” and the Church of St. Panteleimon call upon everybody who is not indifferent towards the fate of children to help organize fund-raising for the overhaul. Besides financial help, the Centre constantly needs paints, aquarelle paper, plasticine, glitter, foil, colored cardboard, other stationery and instruments for creative work as well as musical instruments. For more information: www.deti39.com

Project Coordinators:
The Church of St. Panteleimon the Healer
Lagutinskaya Sofia
8-909-77-98-200, 8 -10-(4012)-(76-32-35)
ICQ: 296-968-892
e-mail: lag-sofiya@yandex.ru
SKYPE: men-con
236010 Russia, Kaliningrad, Donskogo Str. 23

International Charitable Fund «Children Of The World»
Popovich Igor
8(495) 995-03-40
ICQ: 249-585-805
SKYPE: igr-ppvich
info@deti-mira.ru
Postal address: 125057 Russia, Moscow, Fund «Children of the World»

The St. Petersburg public organization ‘Doctors to Children’ was created in 2001 through the efforts of doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists and teachers. Its task is to render assistance to children and families in trouble.

Our founders are the staff and volunteers of the international humanitarian organization “Doctors of the World – USA”. The organization has been financing programs of support for children and problem families in St. Petersburg since 1994.

The mission: to protect the rights of children left without parental care and provide children and families in trouble in St. Petersburg with quality social, medical and psychological aid.

We help:
• Homeless and neglected children – “street kids”
• Potential adoptive parents
• Children from at-risk families
• Children in care institutions – orphanages and children’s homes

Projects:
• Centers rendering social and psychological assistance to street children;
• Prevention of HIV infections and access to treatment for HIV-positive street children;
• Short-stay crisis centers for minors;
• A social hotel for teenagers aged 15-18;
• Professional orientation, assistance in professional training and finding employment to under-aged who have difficult life conditions;
• Help to women – victims of domestic violence;
• Support for HIV-infected mothers with children and to their families;
• A social apartment for HIV-infected mothers with children;
• Foster families;
• A resource center for social work;
• The development of volunteer initiatives;
• The development of a single approach to the protection of children’s rights in St. Petersburg;

Project: the development of volunteer initiatives (for Russian speakers)
Support for non-governmental non-profit organizations by strengthening and developing the youth volunteer movement.

Methods of work:
• The creation and development of a resource centre for training volunteers: the provision of information to, the attraction and selection of candidates as volunteers;
• The supply of volunteers for projects implemented by ‘Doctors to Children’ and partner organizations in accordance with their professional interests
• The development of a resource base for training professional staff

Opportunities for volunteers:
• Education in the “School of Volunteers”
• Acquisition of practical knowledge and skills required for work with children
• Academic or pre-graduation practical training
• A possibility of future employment with the ‘Doctors to Children’ organization and partner organizations.

Results of the project:
• 80 volunteers have undergone training within the framework of “Volunteers’ School”.
• 97 volunteers have taken part in various projects of “Doctors to Children” and its partnership organizations.
• The volunteers devoted more than 1,500 hours of voluntary work while the project was being implemented.
• Three volunteers have been hired by the “Doctors to Children” organization.
• The project was marked by a diploma from the Committee for Youth Policy

197376, Russia, St. Petersburg
Lev Tolstoi Street, 7, office 707
Tel/fax: +7 (812) 380-3092
info@vd-spb.ru
www.vd-spb.ru

‘The Older Brother, Older Sister’ program (for residents of St. Petersburg).

This program is designed to help children from problem families to find older ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ with whom they will be able to cope with difficulties and have fun.

We are seeking energetic and talented people who are ready to devote their free time to a child, to help him or her mature, study and make new discoveries together!

Who can become an older ‘brother’ or ‘sister’?
Any person over 18 who wishes to help children can become the program’s volunteer.

The necessary requirements are:
• The desire and opportunity to communicate with a child for several hours a week for a year;
• An understanding of the role and responsibility of a volunteer worker;
• The desire to support a child for a long period of time
• Patience and attention
• Special training courses
• Participation in monthly supervisions

The specific nature of work
The “older” and the “younger” can go to the cinema together, visit theatres and museums or just walk in the street, participate in sports and simply communicate with each other. A volunteer can help a child to do homework, learn foreign languages and engage in creative activities. The pair should match each other in psychological characteristics, temperament and disposition, interests and personal wishes. A volunteer should meet with his or her younger ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ at least once a week and spend two or three hours with him or her, depending on the needs and interests of the child.

How to become a volunteer of the ‘Doctors to Children’ organization?
In order to become a volunteer of the ‘Doctors to Children’ organization, dial 380-30-92 or fill in a questionnaire at http://www.vd-spb.ru You will get a response without fail!
Volunteers from the ‘Doctors to children’ organization can not only participate in projects, but also attend special lectures and seminars. In the ‘School of Volunteers’, everybody is able to acquire knowledge and practical skills necessary for work with children. Students are given an opportunity to undergo practical training.