Oksana Yushko - Documentary Photos

Maria's Children

The number of orphans in Russia is currently approaching one million. Lacking life experience in a normal family, and faced with modern demands of education and psychological stability, the majority of these children are unable to fully integrate themselves into society. Their own children end up in baby houses, and the cycle continues. The NGO Maria's children is trying to change this situation.
In addition to serving as an arts studio, Maria's children is the basis for a number of special programs, including a social adaptation program for orphanage-school graduates, the goal of which is to assist them in their integration into society. So orphans come through the studio doors not only for classes of various types, but also to learn sympathy, responsibility, and other necessary qualities of life. They learn how to help somebody else who maybe is in an even worse state than they are. In the course of just one year, children volunteer at a baby house, a number of hospitals in Moscow, such as the Children's Division of the Oncological Centre, nursing homes.
The most important thing Maria's children has here is an atmosphere of creativity, friendship, and mutual trust between children and adults, which will help every person, big or small, to find their place in life.

Oksana Yushko in the Web