Visit to "Children Home" Orphanage, Nekrasovo, Tver – Sunday, 19.12.2004

Members who attended the visit:

1. Leonardo de Angelis, President
2. Zsuzsa Barna, Chairperson, Rotary Centennial Committee
3. Alberto Allegretti, Member
4. Jurgen Weiss, Member

Guest:

• Irina Shirinyan, Rotarian, RC The Canyon Rim, Texas, USA

All the above mentioned people met at 09:00 at the “Ramstore” shopping mall on Leningradskij ch., close to MKAD. Then, thanks to Jurgen who offered a mini bus of his company and Zsuzsa, who rented a truck to bring all food and gifts, we left for Nekrasov. At our arrival there, at 11:00 Mr. M. P. Bielov, the Principal received us.

As you are aware, Irina Shirinyan promoted this visit some weeks ago at the occasion of her presentation of this poor orphanage at one of our SMs. After this presentation Alberto, Denis and Leonid offered a washing machine and some medicines for children. They also asked the Club to visit the orphanage and check if the Club can help and how to do it. Therefore we organized this visit.

Mr. Bielov expressed his concern about the many problems that he must solve. The few funds that he receives from the Tver Oblast are not enough to satisfy all the basic needs of the children. Those orphans, aged 5 –17, need food, medical assistance, clothes, shoes, and so on. Sometimes he is not able to provide enough food for them. The main building needs a lot of work. There is also a special building for social activity that is not used for safety reason. Another problem is to help children who must leave the orphanage when they are 17. In fact they cannot receive any special education to live alone and without any assistance they risk a lot. I remind you that in the past our club was already involved in a project for helping the children who leave orphanages.

After having visited the buildings, we discussed how to help this orphanage. Among the different suggestions that arose during the meeting, some options seem quite realistic. We can start a concrete, direct and long-term assistance. For refurbishing some bathrooms and toilets, Jurgen will involve KNAUF, his company. He will contact a local building company and propose them to work free of charge by using materials offered by KNAUF. Zsuzsa can involve some friends and offer medical products. Other people and companies can be involved for frequent supply of food, clothes and shoes. For buying some equipment, stoves, refrigerators and other kitchen wares, beds, cupboards and so on we can involve RC Remscheid. Irina Sirinyan will ask her RC and other RCs of Texas to cooperate. For this purpose we can promote a Matching Grant and so receive the contribution of The Rotary Foundation (TRF): 50% of the total amount offered by the different RCs. Of course we must propose the RC Tver to cooperate with us in implementing the project. RC Tver can ensure a direct frequent contact with the orphanage and so satisfy also the request of TRF for MG.

All these ideas will be discussed during the next meeting of the Board. In the meanwhile Alberto, who asked to be responsible for this project, will remain in touch with Mr. Bielov to detail all the needs in terms of urgent aid and equipment to be provided to the orphanage.

Then we met with the children. As mentioned above we had used a mini bus and a mini truck to bring all the boxes of chocolates bought by our Club as already done in Tomilino, and all the gifts, clothes and cakes offered by our friends. I wish to thank warmly Irina Shirinyan for the TV set she offered to the orphanage, Alberto for the 10 “panettoni”, the Italian Christmas cakes that he received free of charge from the restaurant “Il Pittore”, Philippe for the big parcel of used but in good condition clothes but especially Zsuzsa. This generous and fantastic lady who had collected some additional funds among friends, mainly Rotarians at the occasion of a party last Thursday, bought different kinds of gifts, each according to the age of children. But her best idea was to buy a big puppet dressed like “Ded Moroz” (Russian Santa Claus) and playing violin. When switched on the puppet plays and Christmas music can be heard. When we arrived in the room where small children were and showed the puppet, you can imagine their surprise: they were really taken aback! Then, as agreed with Mr. Bielov, we offered only the boxes of chocolates and “panettoni”. In fact gifts and clothes will be given to the children at the occasion of the party organized in the orphanage on December 31, 2004. Each gift shall be addressed to each child by a greeting card with the name of the child written on. Of course Zsuzsa bought also the cards. Many thanks again, Zsuzsa!

Zsuzsa, Irina, Jurgen, Alberto and myself were very happy to offer those children some minutes of joy. I hope that our Club can continue to help them in future too. Great thanks to the drivers and all people who have supported this visit, mainly to those who spent this Sunday with me and the children.

We left the orphanage at 14:00 and, after a stop to refresh and have a quick lunch, we arrived at the Ramstore shopping mall at 18:30 approximately.

Leonardo de Angelis Moscow, 20.12.2004

President 2004-2005