Transforming the lives of neglected children in Belarus, Moldova, Russia & Ukraine

Isle of Hope provides free therapeutic rehabilitative services and day care aimed at providing increased independence for 45 young people living with severe learning difficulties.

 

Young people with disabilities form one of the most marginalised and deprived groups in Belarus. For generations, they were regarded as "mistakes" or “punishment for family sins” and locked up in institutions. The prevailing medical advice given to new mothers of disabled children was to put their child in an institution and “try again”.

It is common in the region for fathers to abandon their wives if they chose to keep a child with disabilities, leaving her alone to cope with the challenges of raising a disabled child at home. Having to provide constant care for their children, these mothers cannot earn enough money to support themselves, and so remain trapped in the poverty cycle. There is little or no support for parents choosing to keep their disabled child at home, leaving the parents little choice but to leave their child at an institution. State support to those parents who choose to keep their children from a life in an orphanage is inadequate making it common for children with disabilities to be brought up in poverty and often in an institution.

Isle of Hope was founded in 1996 by a group of desperate parents, mainly single mothers. They needed to create a solution to their problems of caring for their disabled children. Sadly, a number of suicides of mothers unable to cope triggered others to open the centre.

The centre is open weekdays allowing parents to hold employment and support their families.

Future Plans

 

There is currently a waiting list of over 100 young people whose parents would like them to be able to take advantage of such services. Isle of Hope is an example of best practice for work with young people with mental disabilities in the region but has no more capacity.  It can only be hoped that government can be encouraged to adopt this model for many other young people and their parents. They are also in desperate need of a mini-bus to help transport the young people to and from the Centre.