Child protection

“Maria’s children” visit a children's home

On May 1, 2007, "Maria's Children" traveled to Fryazino, a small town in the suburbs of Moscow, to pay a visit to an infant home for children with damages to the central nervous system and mental abnormalities. The purpose of that trip was to do therapeutic work for disabled children, with both the infant’s home staff and volunteers arranging festive activities and cleaning the infant home’s grounds. “Maria’s children” also brought another shipment of hygienic supplies and a huge toy cat.

Children staying at children’s homes are always in need of cheerful and lasting impressions. The arrival of every new person to their place is a big event. But if it is not a regular person, but a clown, or even several clowns…! “A lonely child gradually starts to realize that there are people who come to see only him, to ask him what he likes to do, to play with him. These children feel so lonely here, being surrounded by horrible gray walls…They don’t see any other people here except their guardians. They don’t even know what a regular person in the street looks like… And all of a sudden, a clown arrives carrying balloons and blowing soap bubbles!”, said Sonya Stepanyan, a student from a teacher training college and an employee of the center “Maria’s Children”.

Former inmates of other children’s homes also took part in the trip to Fryazino. A visit to the infant home gave them an opportunity to have a glimpse of their bygone childhood days. Many of them, though they had the painful experience of being brought up in a children’s home, just don’t remember some of its bitter moments. Having found themselves in an infant home, they begin to think about the reasons that have brought children there in the first place, about their needs and ways to help them. Who knows, such a visit may keep them from taking the same step that their parents took many years ago abandoning them to their fate. Sergei Petrovichev, a volunteer and a boarding school graduate, provided the following comment: “Every time I come to the infant home in Fryazino, I enjoy playing with children, and they come over to me on their own initiative to join the game. I try to share joy and affection that they miss so much… I try to make them laugh and interact with me. I don’t know whether they understand me, but judging by their faces, they must be very happy. The memory of this experience will stay with me for a long time to come.”

The clown's trip to the infant home in Fryazino was sponsored by UNICEF.

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