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St. Sophia Social House. St. Sophia orphanage for disabled children: day one St. Sophia orphanage official
Rusfond and the Moscow St. Sophia orphanage for disabled children signed a cooperation agreement.
Orthodox St. Sophia orphanage (mixed) is a project created by the Mercy aid service in March 2015 with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. There are 22 children in the orphanage. These are orphans and children left without parental care, with severe multiple developmental disorders, all of them were previously in the department for the most severe children of a state boarding school.
The St. Sophia Orphanage took part in the competition and won the tender for the care and education of children with special needs. Based on the results of this tender, on February 24 of this year, a state contract was concluded between the St. Sophia Orphanage and the Moscow Department of Social Protection, according to which the Department undertakes to provide about half of the funds needed by the orphanage - about 60 thousand rubles. per month for one child. The second half is another 60 thousand rubles. for a child - Rusfond undertakes to provide donations. According to the agreement between the St. Sophia Orphanage and Rusfond, the total amount of donations transferred by the foundation to the orphanage will amount to more than 17 million rubles for the year.
Unlike state boarding schools, where there are approximately 20 children with multiple developmental disabilities per teacher, in the private St. Sophia orphanage each teacher works with approximately 7 children, that is, each child receives approximately three times more attention. St. Sophia Orphanage actively attracts volunteers to communicate and support the pupils.
The St. Sophia orphanage for disabled children is one of 24 social projects of the Orthodox aid service “Mercy”, which annually helps tens of thousands of people in need: from orphans and disabled children to the homeless and HIV-infected. More than 60% of the “Mercy” service exists on donations from caring people. The St. Sophia Orphanage is looking for a financial guardian for each child: you can find out more about how to become a trustee on the official project page.
Orthodox help service "Mercy"/Patriarchy.ru
One of the first orphanages in Russia for children with multiple disabilities is looking for people to join the team! Job openings: teacher, cook, laborer, cleaner.
St. Sophia Orphanage; photo: Deacon Andrey Radkevich
Educator
in a group of 5 children with severe developmental disabilities (physical and mental).
Responsibilities:
Full support of a group of children with developmental disabilities throughout the day in their daily activities, teaching self-care skills, organizing and implementing developmental activities, drawing up and implementing individual programs for the social, everyday and social-environmental orientation of a child with developmental disabilities:
— Training and support in carrying out morning hygiene procedures (bathing, learning to brush teeth, sitting on potties);
— Training in the skills of independent dressing, putting on shoes, etc.;
— Training and support in the process of mastering the skill of eating, preparing food together with students;
— Organization and implementation of group and individual developmental classes (class “Circle”, manual activities, etc.);
— Organization of walks;
— Organization of children’s employment during the day;
— Accompaniment to school (outside the territory of the orphanage or assistance with home education);
— Planning and participation in the process of children’s trips to exhibitions, museums, swimming pools, educational activities, etc.;
— Traveling with children in the summer to children’s camps or country houses;
— Going out with children for shopping at nearby stores;
— Joint participation with children in divine services in the house church at the orphanage and other activities that help strengthen the emotional, mental and physical state of children, promoting socialization and integration;
— Submitting applications for the purchase of children's clothing and shoes. Organization of everyday processes in the group.
Requirements:
1. Higher professional education (pedagogical, defectological, psychological);
5. Stress resistance;
6. Physical strength (no contraindications to lifting weights, such as thrombophlebitis, varicose veins, hernias of any location, surgical interventions with removal of internal pelvic organs, etc.); The desired age of the employee is from 23 to 45 years.
7. Willingness to work with children with developmental disabilities not out of pity, but out of respect and desire to support the child in his development;
9. Desire to learn and improve your skills;
10. Willingness to bear legal responsibility for the life and health of disabled children, without limiting their cognitive activity.
11. Churching and the blessing of a confessor are encouraged.
12. Experience working with children with developmental disabilities is preferred.
We offer:
1. Salary 35,000 rubles.
2. Working hours 5/2 from 15.00 to 21.00
3. Registration in accordance with the Labor Code of the Russian Federation
4. Free lunches
Photo: Deacon Andrey Radkevich
Cook
Responsibilities:
— Preparation of hot and cold baby food dishes according to the technological map in accordance with the approved menu for 21 children. Soups, fish, meat, poultry, salads, side dishes. Full cooking cycle;
— Preparation of lunches for the staff of the orphanage for 20 people. Soups, salads, side dishes;
— Preparing products for cooking;
— Finalization of cooked food to the required consistency in accordance with the needs of children with special needs.
Requirements:
1. Professional education;
2. Availability of a medical record;
3. Well-developed communication skills;
4. Responsible approach to work;
5. Accuracy;
6. Stress resistance;
7. Physical strength. The desired employee age is up to 55 years;
8. Desire to participate in the process of helping children with developmental disabilities;
9. The desire to work in a team of people who share the position of the unconditional value of a person with disabilities as a creation of God;
10. Churching and the blessing of a confessor are encouraged.
We offer:
1. Salary 31,000 rubles;
2. Working hours 2/2 from 07.30 to 18.00;
4. Free lunches.
Cleaning lady
Responsibilities:
— Wet cleaning of floors and surfaces, vacuuming of carpets in children's groups;
— Ventilation of rooms in children's groups;
— Maintaining cleanliness and order in the premises of children's groups throughout the working day;
— Wet cleaning of floors and surfaces of non-residential premises and stairwells of an orphanage;
— Wet cleaning of bathrooms;
— Removing garbage, including used diapers;
— Performing general cleaning in children's groups at least once a week;
— Interaction with teachers and children in groups. Help when children go out for walks.
Requirements:
4. Accuracy;
5. Stress resistance;
8. The desire to work in a team of people who share the position of the unconditional value of a person with disabilities as a creation of God;
We offer:
1. Salary 21,000 rubles;
2. Working hours 5/2 from 09.00 to 17.00;
3. Registration in accordance with the Labor Code of the Russian Federation;
4. Free lunches.
Kitchen handyman
Responsibilities:
— Preparing products for cooking (preparing blanks);
— Unqualified assistance to the cook during the cooking process (carrying out the cook’s instructions during the cooking process);
— Delivery of food to children’s canteens in each group, collection of dirty dishes from canteens after children eat;
— Washing tableware and boilers;
— Keeping dishwashing sinks, trays, dryers, shelving, kitchen utensils, etc. clean in accordance with SanPiN requirements. kitchen equipment;
— Waste disposal;
— Participation in general cleaning of the catering unit at least once a week;
— Interaction with teachers and children in groups. Help the teacher in the process of feeding children during lunch.
Requirements:
1. Availability of a medical record;
2. Well-developed communication skills;
3. Responsible approach to work;
4. Accuracy;
5. Stress resistance;
6. Physical strength. The desired employee age is up to 55 years;
7. Desire to participate in the process of helping children with developmental disabilities;
8. The desire to work in a team of people who share the position of the unconditional value of a person with disabilities as a creation of God;
9. Churching and the blessing of a confessor are encouraged.
We offer:
1. Salary 27,000 rubles;
2. Working hours 2/2 from 08.30 to 20.30;
3. Registration in accordance with the Labor Code of the Russian Federation;
4. Free lunches.
There are no losers
- Svetlana Mikhailovna, how did you find out that you were nominated for the award?
They called me and asked me to make a video about me and our orphanage. When we were convinced that our work was really appreciated so highly, RBC correspondents arrived and prepared that same video. It, like similar stories about seven other nominees, appeared in the public domain, after which voting began online.
- Based on its results, you were among the two finalists. Why do you think?
It’s unlikely that this is my merit. It’s just that the videos about the St. Sophia Orphanage and about my colleague in the finals - the founder of the Vera Hospice Fund Nyuta Federmesser - turned out to be the most vivid. It was not possible to tell such a convincing story about the other six nominees, including the unique achievements of the Center for Curative Pedagogy. And Internet users, naturally, primarily evaluated the content of the presentations. Still, very few people have personally visited either a children’s hospice or our orphanage.
In this case, why were you among the nominees for such a prestigious award? The jury nominated not an oligarch, not the head of a state corporation, not a provincial enthusiast, but the aspiring director of a small orphanage on the outskirts of Moscow...
This is truly amazing. Of course, this is not my success, but our entire project, our orphanage. At the award ceremony, I was able to exchange opinions with other participants and with the officials of this award. As I was able to understand, the St. Sophia Orphanage became famous thanks to journalists. This is probably because we have no Russian analogues in the non-state sphere, and our experience is of interest to many people.
- We will not disclose what prize the winning Federmesser received. What did they give you?
Beautiful bouquet of flowers. Experts determined the winner of the award in each category from among the finalists by closed voting. In general, I believe that there can be no losers in a nomination like ours. The more attention to my humble person, the more famous the St. Sophia Orphanage, the better for our children. Although I still don’t understand why our merits were recognized in the “Charity of the Year” category. Which director is a philanthropist? A philanthropist is someone who gives money to our children. This is a donor, a donor...
- What do you call yourself?
I (somewhat embarrassed) am a mother of 21 children...
Then a few words about those thanks to whom the St. Sophia Orphanage was established in its current format, lives and develops successfully. What share of expenses is covered by government agencies, and how much goes to private philanthropists?
All our expenses are covered in approximately equal shares by the capital’s department of social protection of the population and the Rusfond Charitable Foundation for Children. Launching into a year of crisis, we expected that each of our children would have a personal benefactor - a philanthropist who would fully finance their upkeep from their own funds. So far, this has been done for only one pupil: the boy Kostya, one capital company transfers money monthly. But in addition to the volunteers who spend their personal time free of charge to help and develop our children, they make real friends from among the adults. These are people who cannot help them financially, but who perceive them as their own wards and are ready to help at any time. Now we are little by little starting to think about creating a guest mode for some of the guys. This is very cool and important in itself. After all, before starting even remote conversations about the possibility of placing our children in a family, we need to check how ready they are for such a step, we need to understand how to generally prepare adults from among our friends for this. Besides, I would not give the child to a complete stranger, even if he was very nice, kind and financially wealthy. And we know our friends, we understand their capabilities very well, so they have already received a credit of trust.
Copybooks and broken pencil
When you started work last year, you shared your plans to send all school-age children to study in special educational institutions. Was it a success?
Yes. The wards of our two groups, which we conventionally call “Adaptation” and “Schoolchild,” study in schools. The first of them includes the five most difficult children aged from nine to seventeen years (with the most severe forms of developmental disabilities, as a rule, wheelchair users). They study at home. In the second, children are educated in three schools. Three times a week (on a rotating schedule) they go to correctional school No. 108 on Leninsky Prospekt. The other three are in the correctional class of the School of Information Education (I-school) near the Vodny Stadion metro station (actually, they have an educational building next to us, but now it is under renovation, so the guys go to class three times a week and two more days practice via Skype). The rest - the majority - go to the Yasenevsky correctional school "Our House" (directly there two days a week, another day they meet with teachers at the Center for Curative Pedagogy - it is much closer geographically, so the road is not so tiring).
Half of the school year is a short period. Did these activities lead to any outwardly noticeable results?
Certainly! The most striking positive changes are among students of the I-school. They have already learned to write! Perhaps for the uninitiated this phrase does not sound very bright. But you need to understand at what level this training began! Let me give you one example. One day, the teacher brings me a sheet of paper with neat squiggles in pencil, like in school copybooks: “To you from Feruza. But that’s not all...” And he puts a broken pencil on top. You need to know this girl. When we took her from the 15th Orphanage, she was very emotionally excitable: she constantly screamed, swore, was indignant, and spoke extremely sparingly. The children's hospital tried to send her to the hospital several times without success. A patient with cerebral palsy, Feruza, is indicated for hip surgery. But the whole problem is that then she needs to be persuaded to undergo the rehabilitation process. How to do this with such excitability? And a couple of weeks ago, Feruza and I went to the clinic again for an examination. There they stated: the situation is improving, they are ready to operate on her! Now it's our turn. This girl is very stubborn and tenacious, extremely motivated to study. Of course, she wants to become a director... We agreed with her: first we need to finish school, grow up, and then think about it. That's why she tries very hard, sometimes she gets tired and nervous, which is why she has broken pencils.
In general, life in an orphanage makes our pets more independent. They have personal things, they begin to notice other guys and negotiate with each other, they react to adults. The most important thing is that they have a feeling of family.
- Admit it, do you have a favorite among your students?
This is probably our oldest girl, Olya, with whom the orphanage - then still in the form of an idea - began for me. This is a very complex child, with huge behavioral problems, which outwardly express themselves in auto-aggression: under stress, she begins to mutilate herself. In the Children's Children's Institution, she was kept in a psychiatric hospital twice a year around the block. Let's try to look at this situation as unbiased as possible. Any new experience causes fear in the child, which in turn leads to new unpleasant experiences. She lives in one place for three months, then she is transported to another. There was no way out of this vicious circle. But when we started working with Olya, trying to give her support and a basic sense of security, the self-aggression began to go away. She took a spoon and began to learn to eat on her own. She even started playing with other children, which, judging by the level of her mental development, without exaggeration, looked like a stratospheric success.
All this was still in the children's school. And now the time for another planned hospitalization is approaching. Our timid attempts to get at least a delay from the doctors were not heard. And when the girl returned three months later, we saw that we could start work from scratch.
Therefore, in Olya, who now lives with us and successfully continues to study and develop without strong drug programs, I simply observe in the most tangible form the main idea and main meaning of the St. Sophia Orphanage. This girl makes it clear why and who needs us. The system of orphanages and boarding schools, even if it is incredibly rich in money and wonderful specialists (which, unfortunately, it is still far from), is stagnant and clumsy. Therefore, I wanted to say goodbye to it and start building individual development programs based on the needs of each child. In a kindergarten with five hundred children, this is impossible.
“I asked for the director”
Svetlana, with your education you could become a pianist or actress. How did you end up in the social sphere?
At the Saratov State Conservatory named after. Sobinov, I graduated from the theater department with a degree in theater and film artist. By the way, in those days when it was an independent school, such stars of the first magnitude as Oleg Tabakov and Evgeny Mironov came out of it. After two years of work at the Saratov children's theater "Teremok" she moved to Moscow - still as an actress. But then, eight years ago, my churching had already begun and I began studying with the guys in a theater group at one of the Odintsovo churches. I had a lot of free time, and I was lucky with my friends. And one day my life trajectory intersected with the Patronage courses at the St. Demetrius School of Sisters of Mercy. After them, in January 2010, I said goodbye to my young actors in Odintsovo and went to work at the Orthodox help service “Mercy”. I was assigned to Children's Orphanage No. 15. In the first two days, it seemed to me that there was nothing to do there: it was clean, beautiful. The children are lying in their beds - this is probably how it should be. And on the third day I decided to go to the St. Spiridonyevsky almshouse, which was then located in adjacent apartments of a residential building near the Donskoy Stavropegic Monastery. But the authorities complained (they say it’s dishonest) to the confessor of the mercy service, Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuevsky. And soon one of the older sisters of DDI went on maternity leave, so a job was found. So I stayed with the children...
It turns out that you spent five years at the Children's Orphanage. What evolution has the work of the Mercy service undergone there over the years?
Colossal. At first, I didn’t understand anything about pedagogy or the specifics of working with children with severe developmental disabilities. This was not taught at the nursing courses. The horizons to which we should strive began to open only after completing specialized courses in two charitable organizations, which cannot be mentioned separately. We have already named the first: this is the Center for Curative Pedagogy, where, in addition to special development methods, they are also guided by a certain philosophy of working with children: to look for in each person what he can, and not what is inaccessible to him. The second is the Perspectives organization based in St. Petersburg, which copies the rich German experience in caring for special children. Now they take care of an orphanage and a boarding school for adults, and also organize a rich program of seminars.
This training greatly expanded the range of my perception of raising disabled children and the problems associated with it. After all, previously in Russia the concept of an unteachable pupil was dominant (it is precisely this category, by the way, that all our children could belong to). Several years ago it was officially abolished, but in our heads it demonstrates its vitality. The term “bedridden children” is also extremely common and still very popular. It was necessary to move away from the dominance of these concepts, but no one understood how.
But from working in a city orphanage to running an orphanage, even a small one, is a giant journey. How did you rise to the position of director?
I asked for it! Of course, not right away. At first, we agreed with the administration of the boarding school to allocate 20 children, with whom our sisters of mercy, specialists and volunteers began to work. Immediately, the Center for Curative Pedagogy managed to organize classes for the most prepared wards - first for three, then for six children. This was truly a revolutionary breakthrough! After all, these children did not leave the walls of the orphanage for the first time in an ambulance: they began to go to study!
The year before last, the activities, which gradually increased in volume and intensity, yielded unprecedented results. Our children - let me remind you that according to the traditional classification are unteachable - began to show social activity and become interested in what is happening around them. They went and crawled as best they could. And, as in any family where babies are growing up at the appropriate stage of development, children in children's institutions were faced with the need to simply put cutting, piercing, and dirty objects somewhere up. But a boarding school is not an apartment. There are important documents on the staff's desks; you can't lock them up every minute. Moreover, as every parent knows, no one has ever managed to successfully hide absolutely everything from just one baby. What if there are two dozen such “babies” in the group?!
It turns out that the boarding school itself is unsuitable for the development of such children. To be honest, the system itself, if we return to this term, is initially not very tuned in to such activity: it is considered optimal to invest all resources in “teachable” children, in whom milder disorders are not seen as fatal. There seems to be a chance to teach them life skills (even if they are primitive), to prepare a disabled person for independent life. And “ours” have only one path in store: a psychoneurological boarding school and a quick end to earthly existence.
But to our team, such a scenario did not seem fair. We saw obvious development potential and wanted to use it, so we began to look for a way out. Various unconventional solutions came to mind, such as using rented apartments to arrange a guest regime, allowing you to take a child for six months. Very quickly we became convinced that such options were unrealistic. Fortunately, just at this moment the premises of the St. Sophia Orphanage for Boys began to be vacated: its pupils were actively being sorted out by foster families. And so this project of ours took shape - unprecedented in the Church and in Russia.
Tell me, during this first year of the life of the St. Sophia Orphanage in its new capacity, was there any event that prompted you to somehow look at the world differently, to evaluate all your activities in a new way?
Most of all, our 38-day summer vacation, which we spent in the Kaluga region at the Galaxy camp, sank into our souls. Until recently, it was not believed that the plan could be realized. And I cannot explain the fact that at the last moment we were offered a newly renovated building, which was literally accepted into operation by the state commission, except by God’s will. At the same time, we are very grateful to the capital’s department of culture, thanks to which we were able to enter the citywide summer recreation program, and to the already mentioned foundation, which financed the trip of ten adults. This number included a senior teacher with a speech pathologist; In addition, friends and volunteers came to visit the guys on weekends. As one song says, summer is a small life, and regarding our trip to the Galaxy this is three times true. After all, during the first months in our orphanage, we all basically got used to the building, to each other, and to the new structure of life. Besides, no matter how you teach the kids, they don’t see life and believe that tea is immediately brewed, with brown tea leaves. In nature it’s a completely different matter: there you can walk under the pine trees, touch and collect pine cones! In addition, it was in the camp that our family team was formed. There was always one adult for two children - such a ratio is rarely achieved here in Moscow. The adults even spent the night with the children! For those children who are able to comprehend this fact, it sometimes caused a real shock: wow, educators are ordinary people, they also need sleep and rest. In turn, we, adults, finally became closer to the children, the last fear of them disappeared, because, paradoxically, it was also present, especially among the newly recruited staff.
You mentioned that in an orphanage it is rarely possible to maintain the ratio of “one adult from the staff to two wards.” Does this mean that your institution has not yet reached world standards in the field of mercy?
The fact is that there are no doctors on the staff of our orphanage: the children are treated in other places. In each of the three groups there is a teacher and two assistants, plus a psychologist, a defectologist, a director and an executive director. In DDI the ratio is much worse. Yes, we have free bets. Candidates are constantly undergoing internships, but two to four vacancies are permanently available on staff. There are two main reasons: not everyone can withstand our conditions, and the administration imposes strict requirements on applicants. In the near future there will be more free bets: we are disaggregating, and instead of three groups we will have four. Do you hear the knocking behind the wall? This is His Majesty's renovation: new sanitary standards and rules have been adopted, and with the old format we do not fit into them...
When visiting such places, I always say that I feel as good in them as in a temple. And if there is still a temple in such a place, then you feel like you are in heaven, because very good and important deeds are being done here. And we believe that through common efforts all the difficult consequences associated with the peculiarities of their development will be reduced.
I would like to address the children first. My dears, you live in a place where God is very close to you, and therefore in some especially difficult life circumstances, turn to the Lord, He will help you. I wish you all God's help, health, peace of mind, and teachers and workers - strength and strength.
To those relatives who are also present here, I would also like to say words of encouragement. We don't know why one child is born healthier and another less healthy, but they are all born with an eternal living soul. And before God there is no difference - a physically healthy person or a sick person. On this basis, special care is built for those children and adults who need our help.
Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' (from a word during a visit to the St. Sophia orphanage on January 7)
In 1993–1994 through the joint efforts of the sisterhood of the Community of St. blgv. Tsarevich Dimitri and the capital's department of education created a shelter for girls. It had state status, and the staff was recruited from people of the Orthodox faith. In 1998, the orphanage became Moscow City Orphanage No. 27. However, the state status of the institution did not allow children to be openly raised in the Orthodox faith. After much work and petitions, in the fall of 2003, by decision of the Moscow City Duma, the 27th orphanage was repurposed into the St. Sophia Orthodox orphanage, and in 2008 - into an orphanage for boys. In 2011–2012 The building was expanded during renovation. In 2014, the premises became vacant due to the fact that some of the pupils found families, and the rest grew up. Now this is one of 24 social projects of the Orthodox help service “Mercy”. You can support him on a special web page miloserdie.ru / friends / about / svjato-sofijskij-detskij-dom / donate. To find out more about how to become a financial trustee of a student, please call +7 (926) 409–6508 (Svetlana Emelyanova) and +7 (985) 434–8725 (Konstantin Basilov).
Svetlana Emelyanova graduated from the Saratov State Conservatory and Saratov State University. Since 2010, she has been the head of the department of the Orthodox help service “Mercy” at Children’s Oriental Institution No. 15. In 2014, she graduated from the St. Demetrius School of Sisters of Mercy (qualification “nurse”). Since 2015 - director of the new orphanage for disabled children of the Mercy service.
With the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, the Orthodox aid service “Mercy” opened the country’s first non-state orphanage for children with multiple developmental disabilities. Patriarch Kirill expressed the initiative to organize an orphanage for disabled children, which would operate under the auspices of the Church, in 2013. The new house will house 21 children. 19 of them moved today from state orphanage No. 15, two more children are expected in the near future.
“Our orphanage is a breakthrough. Now there is a turning point in the attitude towards special children, more and more people in Russia are trying to help them,” noted Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuevsky, the confessor of the Mercy help service, during the opening of the St. Sophia Orphanage. “We want our home to be open, like the home of each of us is open: so that guests come here, so that volunteers work with children, so that the most modern methods of rehabilitation are implemented here.”
Let us remind you that the sisters of the St. Demetrius Community of Mercy and volunteers of the Mercy service have been working with disabled children in state boarding schools for the past 13 years. Thanks to the help of the sisters, many children, most of whom had previously spent all their time in bed, began to eat, sit up, walk, smile, and communicate with the sisters and staff on their own.
Unlike state boarding homes, where there are approximately 20 children with multiple developmental disabilities per teacher, in the new St. Sophia orphanage each teacher will care for approximately 7 children. This means that each child will receive approximately three times as much attention.
The St. Sophia Orphanage will attract volunteers who are ready to accompany the children for a long time. In addition, the organizers intend to do everything possible to find families for these children. However, given the severity of the violations of many of the wards at home, nurses and other specialists of the orphanage are ready to take care of them even after they come of age.
The opening of a new and so far the only non-state orphanage in Russia for children with multiple developmental disabilities became possible with the support of the Moscow Department of Social Protection, with the assistance of the Center for Curative Pedagogy and a number of other non-profit organizations.
The St. Sophia orphanage for disabled children is one of 24 social projects of the Orthodox aid service “Mercy”, which operates with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill. Until the end of 2014, the project operated as the St. Sophia Orphanage for Boys. In 2014, the building of the orphanage was vacated due to the fact that some of the pupils found a family, and the rest grew up and are ready for independent life.
You can support the St. Sophia Orphanage for disabled children on a special project page on the Miloserdie.ru website:
In March 2015, with the support of the Orthodox help service “Mercy” and with the blessing of Bishop Panteleimon of Orekhovo-Zuevsky, the Orthodox St. Sophia Social House (Autonomous non-profit organization of comprehensive social services “Orthodox St. Sophia Social House”) was created - a private orphanage for children with special needs, one of the first in Russia. Twenty-two children aged from five to seventeen years old with severe multiple developmental disorders, who previously lived in one of the Moscow orphanages, moved here. They have here everything that children need: care, care, affection, smiles, consolation, treats, games, studies, holidays, books, walks, cartoons, bedtime stories...
The house, as many now affectionately call the St. Sophia Social House, appeared thanks to the sisters from the Orthodox service “Mercy”, teachers from the Center for Curative Pedagogy and employees of the Moscow Department of Social Protection, who believed that children with special needs should live a normal childhood life. And this means: don’t lie in bed all the time, even if you don’t walk or sit, study, even if you can’t speak, go for walks, and in the summer go to camp. And most importantly, you are surrounded by close people and friends. At first glance, all this seems natural, normal - nothing special. Only, unfortunately, for a disabled child from an orphanage such a life is special.
We liked the idea. And already in May 2015, the assistance program “Rusfond.Dom” appeared. Together with you, dear friends, we can turn the St. Sophia Social House into a Home for these children.
Help please!
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| Katya K. | Semyon K. | Serezha Ya. |
| * Currently, Rusfond helps 17 pupils of the St. Sophia Social Home 26.02.2016 Ole S. turned 18 years old 10/18/2016 Gor V. was transferred to guardianship, Vika K. enrolled in the Lodge 10/31/2016 Kostya K. was transferred to a family for upbringing, Leon V. enrolled in the Lodge 04/25/2017 Kostya S. was transferred to a family for upbringing, Semyon K. was enrolled in the Domik 07/01/2017 Serezha Y. enrolled in the Domik 10/01/2017 Nastya T. turned 18 years old 10/25/2017 Serezha Y. was placed in foster care with a family 12/01/2017 Misha S. turned 18 years old, Angelina M. was enrolled in the Domik 01/11/2018 Feda R. turned 18 years old 02/01/2018 Gleb. N. was placed in foster care with a family 05/01/2018 Katya K. enrolled in the Domik 10/08/2018 Seryozha K. turned 18 years old 01/01/2019 Dana K. turned 18 years old |
While living in the House, children attend classes at rehabilitation centers, go to swimming pools and petting zoos, and go to a children's camp in the summer. They are under the constant supervision of orphanage staff, specialists in therapeutic pedagogy, a defectologist and a psychiatrist, and communicate with volunteers.
180 thousand rubles are required per month for the maintenance of each pupil of the House. From this amount are paid:
- food and medicine for pupils;
- utilities: water, electricity, emergency and maintenance of the building, security;
- salaries of employees: teachers, kitchen workers, administrative staff, psychiatrist, speech pathologist.
