Furagin school/Family home Moscow, Russia September 2015
Lööf Foundation has been to visit and support Furagin school/family home approximately 1.5 hours outside of Moscow. There are 120 children with special needs living there. They are 7-19 years of age. Many of them are orphans, and many of the parents have problems with drugs, alcohol, or crime. It doesn’t seem quite unusual in Russia that if you have children with special needs to leave them behind. That really breaks my heart. We started the day off with shopping, and managers in the family home told me that they were in great need of toilet articles so we purchased a lot!
– 45 Packages of toothbrushes (they ran out)
– 18 Tubes of toothpaste
– 5.8 Litres of pump soap
– 1200 Ear cleaning
– 1200 Rolls of toilet paper
– 360 Napkins for hands
– 100 Pads
– Lots of tissues when having a cold
– Lots of serviettes, both in general and a little more festive
– 5 Packages of Air Freshener for the toilet
– Cleaning both toilet and kitchen
– 100 Patches
– 2 Nasal spray
– Clinical thermometer
– Cotton
– Wound cleaner
– Moisturizer
From Sweden we had brought with us:
– 25 teddy bears for the younger children
– 120 Pencil cases with pencils, an eraser and a pencil sharpener
– 10 Bottles of bubbles
– 5 Twist ties
– 5 Jump ropes
– 5 Paint sets
– Set with pearls to do art
– 20 Swedish flags
– 48 Notebooks
When we arrived, we were sitting in the managers office and she spoke no English (and I know no Russian) but our Russian office manager was in place and translated. She told me that many children have severe health problems, and many congenital troubles. There are 50 teachers that work at the school and all have special training to support these children in the best way. At Night, there are 6 nurses in place. It is funded by the state, and is clean and tidy but it has probably remained the same in the 40 years that it has existed. They live 2-4 children together in the same room. The bathrooms had no toilet paper so it felt good in the heart that we had so much toilet paper with us! They get 4 meals a day and all sit together in a large dining room with long tables and desks. There, volunteers play with the kids and many local businesses are supportive. It was the first time the kids met someone from another country, they thought that was really exciting!!! We talked to each other by interpreter and it went great! They were very happy for all the things they got and I hugged so many children today! On the way back to the airport we stopped at a computer store and bought two computers for Furagin, they had two very very old computers so that felt good to be able to improve their standard. Staff from our Partex Russia branch will go back next week to help them and set them up and get started. Wonderful working day!
Blog posts - Furagin school/Family home Moscow, Russia
