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Current and Future Orphanage Programs The number of programs we are able to create, maintain, and expand is dependent on the amount of funding we receive each year. Some of our current and future projects include:
Summer Orphanage Program
Ascent Russian Orphanage Aid Foundation helps fund and coordinate a four week summer program where volunteers live and work at the orphanage. The program has been held in Kostroma the last three summers. By volunteering at the orphanage, we have built strong, life-long relationships with both the children and the orphanage staff. Our primary goal is to foster relationships based upon trust, encouragement, friendship, and respect to help kids develop healthy, mature and appropriate self-esteem and positive ambition. Despite the best efforts of the entire staff, many of the children suffer from low self-worth and little ambition. Our long-term goal is to dramatically increase the self-esteem of the children and to help them eventually be prepared for life outside of the orphanage. We maintain contact with the kids and the staff by letter, email, phone, and personal visits throughout the year.
Our goal is to provide a sustainable funding model that will allow us to increase our personal interaction with the kids through more frequent visits, to expand our reach to include other orphanages, and to increase the number of children who can participate.
The children are incredibly excited to have visitors (most kids living in orphanages do not receive any visits from their family, so you can imagine their excitement when they have visitors from halfway around the world!). We have found that it is the direct personal contact with the kids that has the most dramatic impact on them, and we intend to find ways to allow for more frequent and lengthier stays.
Computers Project
Our goal is to place computers in a variety of locations, both inside and outside the orphanages, where the children can most benefit from them, including the local grade school and technical schools, the library, and other nearby orphanages. We would also like to hire a local computer instructor to provide the children with the necessary computer skills to aid them in their education and future jobs. In each location, we will need to provide the funds to create a computer lab, to purchase the necessary computer hardware and software, to provide Internet, and to provide training for the people responsible for running and maintaining the lab and assisting the kids.
Expanded Arts and Crafts Program
Although there is currently an arts and crafts program at the orphanage, we would like to provide funding for an expanded program that begins to incorporate the teaching of business skills to the children and to provide them with an opportunity to interact with people outside of the orphanage. One possibility is for the children at the orphanage to design and sew baby clothes for the children at the Kostroma Baby Home. These outfits could also be sold to adoptive parents to raise money for both the program and the Baby Home. The children have amazing talents in this area, and it is important for them to use their artistic abilities to begin to learn business skills, which are greatly lacking in orphanage graduates.
Spring / Summer Sports Program
When school ends in May, there is often little to do around the orphanage. We hope to fully fund and organize a sports program that will provide a healthy, supervised alternative to the options that are now available. This will require us to hire a sports program coordinator and to finance the purchase of sports equipment and the maintenance of sports fields. This program can easily be expanded to include other orphanages in the area as well as the children living near the orphanage in Kostroma. Providing opportunities for the orphans to have positive interactions with the children and adults outside the orphanage is critical to their learning how to live outside the orphanage when the time comes.
Educational and Life Skills We would like to fund a job skills program to begin providing training for the kids at the orphanage as they get older. This would require us to provide funding for hiring teachers and purchasing the necessary equipment and supplies. Also, working with the local grade school and technical schools, we would like to begin a mentorship program where children at the orphanage are paired with local professionals who can help them find a career path well before they leave the orphanage. Such a program can also provide the older kids at the orphanage with internships, giving them valuable job training and a better vision of the opportunities available to them outside the orphanage. |
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Make a donation to help these children For additional information, contact us at jpayne@novi.k12.mi.us
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