Mission Statement
ChildAid to Russia and the Republics seeks to enable lives to be transformed by supporting disadvantaged children and young people in Russia and the former Soviet Republics. In collaboration with established local partners, we improve the quality of life for street children, orphans and children with disabilities, through short and long term aid and development initiatives usually led or inspired by Christians.
Overview of Ministry Activity
The charity was founded in 1973 under the name Aid to the Russian Church, as a means of raising awareness of the situation facing the Russian church, as many Christians were imprisoned or sent to labour camps because of their faith. However, with the demise of the Soviet Union, economic crisis and instability in the region resulted in many children becoming vulnerable due to lack of parental care, extreme poverty, special educational needs, broken homes, unemployment and alcoholism. As a result of this, the charity expanded its work to support a number of humanitarian projects, and with the move, changed its name to Aid to Russia & the Republics (ARRC).
In 2005 it was decided the focus should change again, in order to address the problem of the growing numbers of street children, orphans and children with disabilities, and to be better equipped to give greater support to a smaller number of projects - our name changed in order to reflect our work to ChildAid to Russia and the Republics. How we support children at risk:
Street Children
Not all the children live in the streets - many do have homes but the conditions brought on by poverty and parental alcohol and drug abuse are such that they are not safe or loving environments to grow up in.
Our partners operate shelters and day-care centres offering respite from harsh conditions of the streets or the neglect and abuse that they may encounter in their homes. We do a lot of work with the families of street children, reuniting them where possible, helping parents to provide for their children, and offer support and training for families in crisis. We run vocational and life-skills training schemes so as to educate and prepare the children for adulthood, and in order to give them skills necessary to find work. This work is carried out in Dniprodzerzhinsk, Ukraine; Chita, Russia; and Khabarovsk, Far-East Russia.
Orphans
Our partners provide material, emotional and educational support to children in 14 orphanages in Ufa, Russia; they work with orphans (especially Roma (gypsy) young people who are social ourcasts) leaving state-care at 16 in Mukachevo, Ukraine; and, abused and needy children in a foster families programme in Sevastopol, Ukraine. We offer extensive vocational, life-skills and transition courses to give the children and young people an education, and we not only seek housing for the children when leaving care, but our project partners also work to inform the wider community of the plight of orphans leaving care.
Children with Disabilities
We support 4 medical day-care centres for children and young people with disabilities in Minsk, Belarus and Chisinau, Moldova. There is also a residentail centre for young people affected by Downs Syndrome. At these centres we provide free treatment and training for poor families who would otherwise not cope with raising a disabled child, or would not be able to afford necessary treatments. Work is also done in local schools to raise awareness of disabilities and to equip them with the facilities required for educational inclusion. We also run educational training schemes, and provide care and accommodation for those who would otherwise be homeless or institutionalised.
Plans and Goals
ChildAid’s ultimate aim is provide sustainable solutions to the problems faced by so many children across the region. We believe this is the most important focus, as such projects will provide the children with a real chance in life and a hope for the future. To this extent we seek to continually offer our partners the opportunity for training.
Through training the staff and volunteers involved in the work of our projects, we can equip them to be increasingly beneficial to the children they work with. Our partners have themselves expressed a need and desire for further training, so they can create greater levels of efficiency and practice within their projects. In addition to this, training will allow the projects to develop as models for future initiatives. Our partners will be able to use their expertise to work with others to establish similar centres, ultimately reaching out to more children in need.
Our desire would be for the projects to be financially self-sufficient from their own resources, local sponsorship of national government support. Funding from ChildAid\'s faithful supporters will always be limited and constantly under threat and more sustainable model is desired in the long term.
Our work is an unconditional testimony to the example of Jesus Christ. We provide a service for which we expect nothing in return, If the children in our projects come to Christ, then it is the shared opinion of both ChildAid and its partners that this will be a significant benefit to the child - however, if they should not be seen as a failure on the part of the project. We are pleased that many children have come to Christ and many more still voluntarily come to churches attended by our partner\'s staff.
