St. Petersburg/ No15 Winter 2014

Dear Friends!

The year 2014 will mark the 18th anniversary of Perspektivy! Over all these years, we have gained the unique experience in how to work with the children with special needs. We have started to share this experience with parents and our colleagues from other organizations. All the positive changes in the lives of our children happened not only owning to the constant work of our professional staff and volunteers, but also as a result of the measures taken for the fulfillment of the rights of the disabled people in Russia and carrying a dialogue between NGOs and the Government. As a result of this dialogue we have already achieved a breakthrough in the current educational system, ensuring that all children with special needs living in St. Petersburg orphanages could go to school.

We would like to say a special thank you for all your support and present the latest achievements

of our special people in this winter issue!

Kind regards,

Margarethe von der Borch

President of Perspektivy St. Petersburg

News of our programmes and projects

Pavlovsk (Children’s home No 4 for mentally disabled children) - On September 1, a new school year began and 107 children from the 4th Department (where children with the most severe disabilities live) went to school! The “Knowledge Day” celebration took place in the renovated room that was decorated with one hundred balloons. Over the summer, the children grew up so much and got suntan, they looked happier and stronger. First-year pupil Galya K. rang the bell while walking a traditional circle in front of the other school children. The children then played different games with their teachers.

- On September 25, three unique playgrounds particularly designed for special children were set up around the building of the 4th Department. These playgrounds were financed and opened by the Naked Heart Foundation of Natalia Vodyanova.

- Our children made over 9 trips to various events: to the zoo, the fairy tale theater, Konstantinovsky Palace, pet club, integrative kindergarten in Pushkin, and to New Year’s celebration events.

- With the help of donations, we bought two Racer+ wheelchairs (for Danya K. and Marta Shch.) and one Otto Bock wheelchair (for Nadiya B.), an Otto Bock shoulder support and R82 head support (for Olesya P.), and orthopaedic pillows for three children. We also bought flooring for the Hall and 10 pairs of orthopaedic footwear. We also received five Racer+ wheelchairs and three Start wheelchairs free of charge for Lena T., Sasha M., Sasha P., Yarik O., Kolya B., Vova K., and Vadik B. We received a new functional bed as a donation for Vika S., two balance bikes, two push scooters, suspension swings for the gym, a Bosu ball for balance exercises, a knee fixing device, modeling clay, and 8 C-shaped orthopaedic pillows.

- Starting in November 2013, as the children are busy at school till the lunch time, most of Perspektivy staff and volunteers work afternoon shifts from 1pm till 7pm, thus the children have activities in the afternoon too.

- Two of our children were operated for gastrostomies.

- Since the autumn, the Parents’ project became more active. We held meetings and specialists’ consultations for the parents. Parents who rarely visited their children in the Home started coming more frequently.

Special thanks to the support of Perspektiven e.V., Germany, Kindernothilfe e.V., Germany,

The Perspectives UK, Great Britain, The Dear Foundation, Switzerland, Initiative Christen für

Europa e.V, EKR , Germany, Koos Amerlaan Foundation, Holland, Jolanda Kortekaas, Ottmar

Stefan

Peterhof (Psychoneurological Residential Home No3 (PNI No3) - The renovation works in 5 rooms of the 3d Department were completed. Now, the residents came

back to all 12 rooms (4-5 people in each room). Each room is equipped with a shower area and a toilet.

- We have got back a renovated game room. Our physiotherapists use it for the sessions with weak children.

- From September through December, we organized 26 day trips for 88 participants (some children took part in several trips). On September 3-5, four residents visited Pushkinskiye Gory, a beautiful picturesque land in Pskov region where Alexander Pushkin, the poet, spent his exiles. In November and December, eight children went to Yunost tourist camp in Losevo.

- In November, six of our children began to attend classes once a week in the pet club of the Kitezh Plus Youth Creative Forum.

- On December 19, a traditional auction for friends of the Art

studio was held.

- From December 22, 2013 to January 19, 2014, the New Exhibition Hall of the State Museum of City Sculpture hosted the Chelovek Izobrazhayushiy [Person who Paints] exhibition where M. Sokolov and E. Fedishin’s paintings and drawings were presented. On January 18, Natalia Petukhova, an art studio teacher, and Leonid Tsoy, a computer class teacher, gave a workshop on Art Techniques when Working with People with Special Needs.

- Over this period of time, we held 10 celebrations for the residents: we celebrated birthdays, held dancing parties, and New Year’s celebration parties. We also celebrated the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Christmas.

- Beginning from December 5, a repair worker (who assists Perspektivy with some regular maintenance) started also teaching our residents to do some easy work. They have already enthusiastically completed their first repair works.

- We published a book of pictures and poems by one of the residents, Vitaly Koluzaev.

- The students of our woodwork workshop made flower planters and garden figurines for the recreational area of Psychoneurological home No 3.

- This autumn, in addition to individual physical therapies our instructors started holding table tennis competitions for stronger residents. We started providing speech therapy sessions for three residents and it is already easier to understand them.

Special thanks to the support of Perspektiven e.V., Germany, The Perspectives UK, Great

Britain, The Dear Foundation, Switzerland, Initiative Christen für Europa e.V, EKR , Germany,

Oleg Shchegolev

Family Support (About 110 families of St. Petersburg) - In the beginning of the new academic year (September 2), we organized a trip to see the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg.

- In September, we received permission from the city authorities to rent the premises on Nepokorennyh prospect free of charge. After these premises are renovated, we are planning to move our Daycare Center there.

- In September we welcomed parents from Schule unterm Regenbogen [School Under Rainbow] (Nieheim, Germany) who visited Orphanage No 4, two Daycare Centers, participated in classes in School No 25, visited

museums, saw a ballet performance and went sightseeing in St. Petersburg. This exchange practice is very important since it goes beyond any age or background boundaries – the parents discussed various issues and supported each other.

- Upon completion of special program in our Daycare Center, five more children went to specialized schools in St. Petersburg!

Special thanks to the support of Perspektiven e.V., Germany, Kindernothilfe e.V., Germany,

The Perspectives UK, Great Britain, Initiative Christen für Europa e.V, EKR , Germany

BRIGHT EVENTS

Cinnamon Cakes Charity Festival On November 24, Tkachi art space held the Cinnamon Cakes festival, with 30 restaurants from St. Petersburg selling cinnamon rolls to support Perspektivy children. The atmosphere at the festival was very warm and friendly. For entertainment, there were art workshops, recreation areas, illusionist shows and music performances by Pur:Pur and Nina Karlsson. 5 children from Psychoneurological residential home No 3 attended the festival, accompanied by our weekend volunteers. The children played with the artists of the DA! Animation studio. At the festival, we sold items handmade by the children from Psychoneurological home No 3, including ceramic angels, wooden puzzles, glass necklaces, soap, etc. In total, we raised 359,896 rubles, which will be enough to ensure the work of five volunteers for six months and the work of the weekend volunteer coordinator for five months!

Hotel Astoria Evening On December 2, 2013, Hotel Astoria held a traditional evening to honor the donors who made the wishes of special children come true or made donations to various programs to support such children.

During the "Christmas gifts for special children" event we raised 911,000 rubles and received over 250 Christmas gifts for our children. We would like to say a special thank you to those who helped make the New Year’s dreams of our children come true!

Volunteer’s Day in Peterhof December 3 is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and December 5 is International Volunteer Day. Perspektivy decided to combine these two days in one event and suggested that St. Petersburg journalists become volunteers at Psychoneurological home No 3 for one day. We handed out green volunteers’ t-shirts to the participants (including the media people of BaltInfo, RIA Novosti, 100TV, and St. Petersburg Vedomosti) who proceeded to perform daily routine tasks at Perspektivy. In the computer lab they participated in publishing the

PNI-Times, newspaper of our Psychoneurological home. In addition, the participating journalists, together with the Home residents, cooked chicken with cabbage, and made soap bars and decorated glass windows. This was a valuable experience for the journalists since most people don't even

understand how children and adults live in orphanages and state homes. The journalists shared their experience later in the published articles. It was important that among the journalists there were university students, because they are the media people of the future, some of them may choose to cover the social field. The journalists also learned about the Volunteer Social Year project that is supported annually by Perspektivy.

If you want to learn more about the Volunteer Social Year project and other opportunities to become a volunteer in St. Petersburg, you can watch the movie "I am a volunteer. Why am I doing this?" This movie was made by Perspektivy with the support of the Committee for Social Policy of St. Petersburg in November 2013 and it is available at www.youtube.com/user/perspektivy198. We would like to say a special thank you to Ernest Timerkhanov for a quality movie that was made in such a short period of time!

Special House Project In late 2012, Perspektivy started implementing the Special House Project. This Project is a consolidation of efforts of four partner organizations: Center for Curative Pedagogics (Moscow), Pskov Regional Charity Organization Me and You (Pskov, Russia), Social Adaptation Center Mayak (Orenburg, Russia), and Perspektivy (St. Petersburg) - that are experienced in providing supported living for people with mental, physical and multiple disabilities. Because of multiple disabilties, these people cannot live on their own and all of them need support and assistance, i.e. supported living. We would like to invite non-profit organizations to join our partners in providing supported living to such people. For more information, you can go to http://osdom.org.ru.

Special thanks to the Delegation of European Union to Russia, co-financing our project!

Measures for the fulfillment of the rights of the disabled people in St.

Petersburg In July-December of 2013, Perspektivy were actively engaged in making changes to the educational system for children with multiple disabilities. We also worked hard to change the status of people living in Psychoneurological homes, we went to conferences, forums and roundtables with presentations. Perspektivy lawyers provided nearly 40 consultations (partially to charity organizations from other cities) telling about the rights of the people with multiple disabilities living in state homes. One of the most important areas was how to implement the rights of the leavers of Children’s home No 4 and Psychoneurological home No 3 to help them get their own apartments from the Government. At present, Perspektivy are helping six children to receive their apartments. One girl out of these six children is already moving into her own apartment.

In the fall, Perspektivy started telling people from Psychoneurological residential homes of St. Petersburg about their rights and carrying out legal seminars in eight Psychoneurological homes of St. Petersburg. Moreover, Perspektivy lawyers are teaching a group of volunteers (social advocates) who will monitor the implementation of the rights of the people living in the state homes of St. Petersburg, coordinate their requests for legal support and accompany them (when needed) if they are dealing with legal authorities.

Special thanks to Brot fuer die Welt, Germany!

These smiles are most valuable for us and the reason of everything we do!

How you can help in 2014:

How your donation will work: A month A year

A trolley for the Daycare centre to carry food and equipment for 14 children

155 € (the price for 1 piece)

Social worker helping 40 families from our Family programme

500 € 6000€

Regular volunteer* taking care of 10 residents with severe multiple disabilities in Peterhof

262 € 3144 €

* In our organization there are three types of volunteers(1.international volunteers coming for a social year from our partner-organisations like ICE, EKR, etc.; 2.weekend-volunteers – those interested to help people who come any time at weekends when they can; 3.regular volunteers who work for us for a year and get some money compensation for food and transport, their work is regular – 5 days a week).

Perspektivy Staff

This section is about the people who work with our children and day after day give them their love and warmth.

In this issue we would like to introduce you to

Alexandra Dubrovina who has been working at

Perspektivy for 6 years. Alexandra's major at Pushkin

Leningrad State University was special psychology.

During her first 18 months at Perspektivy, Alexandra

was in charge of leisure activities at

Psychoneurological home No 3. Having demonstrated

great organizational skills, Alexandra decided to get additional training as an HR manager and later

became the Employment and Leisure Project coordinator. This Project made the life of the residents

more interesting and exciting since the residents get the chance to attend handicraft, ceramics, and

woodwork workshops, they learn how to make soap bars, they go to church, study in the computer,

learn cooking basics, and sing in the choir. In addition, they also participate in various trips and

parties.

We asked Alexandra what she liked about her work most of all and her answer was very brief, "It is

nice to understand that you're not simply performing your work, but you are helping other people

as well. I just like to work with people."

Thank you for your attention! With any questions and offers please contact us (Olga nikolayeva@perspektivy.ru , +7 (812) 320 06 43,

www.perspektivy.ru)

For donations:

All donations coming from outside Russia please forward to our partner-organisation Perspektiven e.V.

Berliner Volksbank

BLZ: 100 900 00

KTO: 525 5900 007

IBAN-Nr.: DE82100900005255900007

BIC: BEVODEBB

Please define your payment, for example: Perspektivy Peterhof programme. Otherwise it will not be identified!

We will be glad if you report your donation to us at nikolayeva@perspektivy.ru!

Special thanks for the English translation to Tatiana Negoda’s Portal 23 translations and internet

projects!