2008
USAID-Supported Seminar on Life Skills and Post-Orphanage Support Programs Engages Audience in Khabarovsk
On November 25, Irina Lindberg, USAID Program Representative in the RFE, joined the participants of a three-day seminar on life skills and post-orphanage support programs which took place in Khabarovsk under the USAID-funded, IREX-administered Assistance to Russian Orphans (ARO) program. Ekaterina Selenina – the seminar trainer from the National Foundation for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NFPCC) and IREX’s major partner in program implementation - discussed various specially-designed, after-school activity programs which could be integrated into the educational system to help with developing self-confidence and practical life skills for orphaned and abandoned children. Seminar participants also discussed various ways to deal with crisis management and stress for orphans, thus working out independent living skills programs for children transitioning out of state care. After growing up inside institutions, 16-18 year-olds leaving the system are often unprepared to provide for themselves. While Russian law guarantees young people housing after leaving the orphanage, economic constraints often prevent this right from being realized. Lacking healthy support networks, many young people leaving orphanages fail to make the transition to independence successfully. Seminar participants recommended that teachers and administrations from vocational schools – where orphans end up going to for education in most cases – also joined such seminars together with peer counselors in order to improve their skills in dealing with high-risk youth of being abandoned.