Center assists families turn from chaotic homes to stable households.

When specialists from the Lada Municipal Social Welfare Center first arrived at the Ponomarev family’s home in the Chaiinskii district of Siberia’s Tomsk Republic, they were horrified. The Ponomarev’s four boys were dirty and sleeping on bare mattresses in a garbage-filled house. The parents, unemployed alcoholics who went on long drinking binges, left them to fend for themselves. The youngest, a disabled 4-year-old, could not speak, walk, or eat with utensils.

The Ponomarevs were furious when the specialists and Tomsk social services staff took the boys away from them to the center. The youngest child screamed day and night, and was sent to a specialized rehabilitation center for disabled children. The other three boys stayed at Lada, where their aggressive behavior made the staff’s job even more difficult.
The center’s family rehabilitation program was founded in order to respond to a typical problem for social services: after children undergo successful social, psychological, and medical rehabilitation in a shelter, they return home to families that haven’t changed. Many rehabilitated children quickly regress to previous behavior.

Working in conjunction with local social services specialists, the center develops a complete family rehabilitation program for families in need. Parents agree to a list of goals they must achieve if they want to reunite with their children, and specialists monitor their progress and counsel them on ending their substance abuse.

Two months later, thanks to the center, the family made a dramatic recovery. The three older boys began to participate in center activities, playing and singing with the other children. As new children were admitted to the center, the Ponomarev boys became their unofficial guardians. The parents both stopped drinking and started focusing on creating a clean and comfortable home. The father found a job, and began planting a vegetable garden. The youngest boy returned from treatment able to walk, dress and feed himself. The Lada staff hardly recognized him as the boy they had found dirty and immobile. Eventually, the boys returned home to a new life.

1,000 Georgian schoolchildren reap the health benefits of safe, clean running water.

Over 1,000 schoolchildren in Georgia’s oldest educational institution have been without running water and proper sanitation facilities for many years due to Georgia’s decaying infrastructure and poorly managed water supply systems. Telavi Secondary School No. 1 was originally constructed in 1758 to accommodate 420 students. In 2004, due to its reputation for academic excellence, 1,006 students and 100 staff are squeezed between the walls of the highly prized but aging building. Diseases that are usually preventable, such as hepatitis A, have run rampant through the school because of unsanitary conditions.

Initiative
USAID is helping to improve the management of water resources in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. USAID awarded a small grant to the Telavi English Teachers’ Association to improve the sanitary conditions at Telavi Secondary School No. l. The small grants component of the project is intended to increase public awareness about critical water issues and allow local stakeholders to solve some very significant water-related problems in their communities.

This small grants opportunity was promoted via newspaper and Internet ads, as well as by individual representatives from the project who visited small towns to inform citizens of the program. Using the grant, the Telavi Teachers’ Association consulted with water supply specialists and public utility representatives to create a solution for the school’s sanitation problems. The grant from USAID covered the installation of a water pipe, a water control system, and a water reservoir for the school.

Results
The school lavatories were thoroughly cleaned and renovated to prevent the spread of disease. School No. 1 now has running water and there have not been any reported cases of hepatitis A since the clean water was restored. Once completed, the school sanitation became the responsibility of the Telavi government to ensure the maintenance of clean water for the school. Winning the small grant from USAID paved the way for the Teachers’ Association to win other small grants for additional projects including a computer laboratory in Telavi for community members to learn how to use computers and access the Internet.

Program uses trips and fun events to foster religious understanding.

Youth from the small Bulgarian town of Momchilgrad participating in the “Beyond Difference” project are shy but proud when they say they know more about other religions than their fellow students or even their parents. Conceived by a staff member of a local NGO, “Beyond Difference” aims to gather an ethnically diverse group of students among Momchilgrad’s Bulgarian, Turkish and Roma populations, and help them value the diversity of their community and broader society.

The students learn about the history and traditions of the area’s dominant Christian and Muslim religions, as well as other religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism. The program also includes site visits to historic places in the surrounding Rhodope Mountain region. Some students say their favorite parts of the project are learning how children of different religions celebrate their festivals, and having the opportunity to experience new foods and songs. Their parents are also involved in the project and benefit from the specialized instruction their children are receiving.

Girls from a Muslim high school in a neighboring village work as volunteers with the project. For the girls, this provides a unique opportunity to interact with non-Muslim children. For some of the children in the project, the Muslim girls’ participation provided them their first exposure to young women practicing a more conservative form of Islam and wearing traditional head scarves.

The project is one of many micro-projects in social services improvement, educational advancement and local economic development in mixed ethnic communities that USAID has implemented through its local partners.

The Bulgarian town of Kazanluk is famous for its rose gardens, which produce some of the world’s finest rose oil for making perfume. It’s also the home of a unique organization: the Future for Children with Disabilities Association, established in 2003.

This non-governmental organization serves children with disabilities and their families. In all of its projects, such as kite-flying, horseback riding, and art therapy, children are the major actors. One of the members’ proudest achievements is climbing up the peak Ispolin in the Stara Planina mountain range.

The group’s members have also participated in a series of USAID-supported training workshops. The Health for Everyone Association, a Bulgarian advocacy group for people with disabilities, led workshops on the topic of social entrepreneurship that inspired the Kazanluk organization to launch a social enterprise combining children’s art therapy with the production of gypsum souvenir figures.

It is pursuing another business idea to ensure a source of stable income: a pastry production facility and a small cafe. Many citizens of Kazanluk are involved as volunteers in the Association’s activities, and say they are eager to be the café’s first clients and regular patrons.

Renovated building now houses Roma group’s educational programs.

For six years, the people of the Future Foundation in the town of Rakitovo dreamed of an educational center. They imagined a place where children and parents could pursue knowledge as part of the foundation’s work to achieve higher living standards for the local Roma community. Peace Corps volunteer Apryl Gibson helped the non-governmental organization apply for a USAID small projects assistance grant, which it received. Meanwhile, the Rakitovo municipality agreed to rent a building for the site at a discount. Young volunteers brainstormed ideas for activities in the center, and parents around town promised to help create the center. Now open, the Educational and Informational Center for Children and Parents offers dozens of local children English, Spanish, art and computer classes in the center. The center also informs parents of the local government structure and of their rights, and encourages community groups, schools and young people to develop projects.

Foster families provide love and attention that institutions cannot.

When Halida and Jasmin Avdic applied to become foster parents, they thought it would help fill the void created by their daughter’s departure from home to take a job. Little did they expect that their home would soon be filled by not one but three energetic boys. Ante, 11, Samir, 9, and their little brother Damir, 8, were thrust into a crisis when their mother was hospitalized and doctors told the family she would have to stay there for a long time. The boys’ social worker, Bozo Stjepic, understood the importance of placing them with a family instead of in an orphanage. “A foster family can provide more love and attention than an institution. Our foster mothers go to parents meetings, help the children study, take them to see specialists – everything a biological mother would do,” he said.

USAID supports a foster family program in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its goal is to place children deprived of parental care into homes rather than institutions. The program requires extensive training of families and follow up by social workers. At first it’s not always clear why extra resources should be used when there are open spaces in institutions. “We say the focus must be on what’s best for the children, not the bureaucracy,” says Jasmina Selimovic, director of the program in Tuzla. “When social workers see how much better the children do in a family setting, they strive to place children with families despite the extra work it brings.”

Halida Avdic agrees. Although taking three new children into her home hasn’t been easy (“I’m just learning how to get all the meals cooked on time,” she laughs), she and her husband consider the boys their family. “Even our dog has accepted them and eats out of their hands,” she says. Avdic wishes more families would consider fostering: “I think that more children should enter this program earlier.”