PC: In the SOS Children's Village in Marina Gorka - Photo: P. Lydén
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Ten years after the first children moved into the SOS Children's Village in Borowljany near Minsk, the second SOS Children's Village in the country will be opened with a celebration. Marina Gorka, a city with some 28,000 inhabitants, is located about 65 km southeast of the capital Minsk.
This new facility has been in operation since July 2004 and up to 80 children can be given a new home there. An additional support programme was started in Marina Gorka last year for the benefit of socially disadvantaged families.
Work in Belarus began as a reaction to the nuclear catastrophe in Chernobyl, Ukraine, and today, thousands of families and children still suffer from its effects. Talks with the government began in 1990, but due to various complications, the SOS Children's Village in Borowljany near Minsk was only opened in 1995, and at the same time, an SOS Social Centre was established there.
This centre accommodates and cares for between 20 and 30 children every month, who must undergo oncological treatment in the hospital in Minsk. During the therapy, which usually takes several weeks, the children can stay at the social centre with their mothers and are therefore not separated from their parents during this difficult period. Doctors and trained personnel are available as well, and they provide the children with professional medical assistance, psychotherapeutic treatment and pedagogical healing measures, as well as spare-time activities.