Masha and Lina enter a new stage of life
By Yelena Andreyeva Masha (15) and Lina (10) are sisters and inseparable best friends. They have lived at Malookhtinsky Dom Trudolyubiya (House of Diligence), a shelter for under age girls, for one year. For it was only one year ago that Masha and Lina were suffering hardship so extreme that they do not want to remember it even now. They lived in a dirty apartment with no food, while their mother was dying of cirrhosis of the liver. They were alone and there was no help. The got no response from their numerous calls to the police and ambulance. Nobody seemed to want to talk to the children and just hung up when they heard their young voices on the phone. Only one or two friends of their mother sometimes brought the girls potatoes to save them from starvation. The police came only when their mother was dead. That is how the girls were brought to the shelter. At that time, Masha’s and Lina’s moral and physical state of health was very bad. The elder sister Masha was not even able to walk and speak. Besides their emaciation and feverish temperatures, both girls were covered in festering wounds. Masha’s life was in danger. The shelter doctor who rendered first aid to the sisters and helped them undertake treatment in the hospital said she had never seen children in such a dangerous state of health. During that time Lina began to feel a bit better and took care of her elder sister, helping her to wash and dress herself. After the hospital they came back to the House of Diligence where the shelter psychologists helped them to overcome a deep psychological crisis. Later they were sent to live in a family group where the warm-heartened tutors looked after them. In summer, before they went on vacation to the Black Sea coast and then to the summer camp in the countryside, Masha, Lina and Galina Volkova, director of the shelter went to Moscow to take part in a television programme “Zhdi Menya”, the national people search service. The programme has already helped another girl from the shelter to reunite with her family in Georgia. Now it was time to find Masha’s and Lina’s father who was originally from Laos and divorced from their mother many years ago. And their father was soon found, and he immediately said that he wanted to take his daughters home. Soon Masha and Lina will meet their father. Although they both are a bit nervous about it and still speak little and quietly, they often smile timidly and say that are looking forward to seeing their father. Then Masha and Lina will enter a new stage of their lives, lives that were saved at Malookhtinsky Dom Trudolyubiya. UNICEF supports Malookhtinsky Dom Trudolyubiya and other projects aimed at supporting children and families in crisis.
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