Overview

The charity foundation “Children of the Earth” was set up 6 years ago. The main participants are volunteers who are common people attracted by matters of children and teenagers from orphanages. For first years the work focused on coming closer together with children under the motto “Become friends with a child”. Different trainings, master classes and summer camps helped both children and adults to experience something new and get to know each other well; they encouraged our working closely with children. The key problem: during several years of our work we have determined the main problem of teenagers from orphan asylums and it is called “the syndrome of a teenager from an orphanage”. It implies that teenagers from orphan asylums are not adapted and adjusted to real life on their own. They have no skills and experience of managing their own cash, they can’t take care of themselves, they don’t often understand what to do in their free time, don’t know their rights and duties, and the most important thing is they are afraid of looking to the future because of their lack of confidence and support. To sum up, it is vital to help these teenagers to understand how to become an adult and what it means being an adult; to find out how to live in the society, it is essential to socialize them and get ready to face the real life, it is necessary to bring and sustain their hopes in future.