Orphanages in Russia provide food, clothes, school education, help of psychologists and still eight out of ten orphans do not adapt to society and become alcohol, drugs addicted, homeless or criminals!

This happens as children are not ready emotionally to become independent, they don’t have a feeling of self-agency – being a person who knows how to manage its own life what normally children learn from parents and positive role models in their circle.

Individual mentoring and personal development opportunities can partially compensate this. For these reasons, London based charity Warmed Heart www.warmedheart.org.uk in cooperation with international charity Big Brothers Big Sisters Russia http://nastavniki.org/, would like to create in Moscow a Youth Development Center for deprived children of 7- 23 y.o.

The aim of the Centre is to provide access to development outside of traditional school program in order to help to acquire mindset and soft skills important for social success as well as to foster personal development. The center planned to serve around 100 children per year from Moscow based and regional orphanages.

At the first stage, the following programs are to be launched on the ongoing basis:

- 6 months Leadership development journey for teenagers and young adults 17 – 23 y.o. The aim of the leadership program is to provide young adults with critical skills to future: effective communication, goal setting, conflict management, time management, financial literacy and professional orientation, stress management. 

This program will be developed by talent development professionals from international corporate sector in cooperation with children psychologists of BBBS and in partnership with the local office of the largest youth leadership development organization - AIESEC. 

- Classes on Robotics for children 14-15 y.o. This is an amazing opportunity for children to learn how to construct based on Lego Education, WeDo, Lego Mindstorms EV3, Arduino, apply their knowledge of math and physics, learn programming, basics of logics and learn how to work in a team. The classes are kindly provided by Liga of Robots. Liga of Robots became a winner of World Olimpiad in robotics in 2017!  http://obraz.pro/regions/

- Acting school with involvement of professional cinema & theatre teachers for teenagers 17- 23 y.o. Acting helps not only to develop artistic talent, but also to open up emotionally and become comfortable with self-expression and public communication. The acting courses will be kindly provided by professional acting school "Theater Without Borders": http://teatrbezgranic.ru/

- Financial literacy classes for teenagers 17-23 y.o. Due to absolute lack of financial literacy, most of the teenagers once graduated from orphanage spend all their accumulated social benefits in a couple of months.  They mismanage their savings, the bank loans and as the result end up in very difficult circumstances. Educational cycles on financial literacy will be kindly provided by MasterCard financial literacy program.

- Drawing classes for children 6-12 y.o kindly provided by professional illustrator Lina Belova

- Chess classes for children 7 - 15 y.o: chess helps to develop strategic and disciplined thinking.  (Looking for a pedagogue at the moment).

This is a first stage of the planned program to be rolled out in 2018 with the plan of further expansion.

The yearly budget required to launch and run the program is 10.000 GBP.  The major budget statements include:

- Salary to 3 children psychologists to be hired by BBBS. Psychologists are needed to coordinate work with vulnerable children and to make sure that content of the program is healthy and relevant for them

- Costs related to organization of educational space  (premises rental, 
educational materials,  educational equipment)

-  Transportation and food for children from Moscow and other regional orphanages

We believe that the Youth Development Centre will help deprived children to become self-sufficient people who are emotionally, mentally and skill wise ready for challenges of modern society.

We hope you would like to become a part of this project and we will be making positive changes together!

Warmed Heart, Big Brothers Big Sisters team & Mariya