Yearn to Learn

Upon returning from Russia after a two year mission living among the people and volunteering weekly at orphanages and childrens' hospitals, I was determined to continue the habitual service I had initiated. Thus the passion behind the budding nonprofit organization I started entitled, “Yearn to Learn.” Essentially this nonprofit will bring an educational model into the orphanages teaching orphans life and moral skills to aid their adaptation into society. This angled strategy is to ameliorate the cyclical problem of orphans having no marketable and family skills once they enter the ravish world. Below is the proposal I have written for “Yearn to Learn.” I will be living in Russian next year laying the logistical ground work of this nonprofit. If you have any desire to assist, please make note in the comment option at the end of this entry.

Orphanages in Russian are vastly overpopulated and the number of abandoned children has reached catastrophic numbers. As of January of this year, 600,000 children are under the care of the state in Russia. The number of children added to the system reached 113,000 this year, nearly double the number of orphans in 1992.

These statistics have been increasing yearly with no end in sight and consequently the end result is more orphans who leave the orphanages ill-equipped and ill prepared for reintegration and adaptation into society.

In order to ascertain and understand what societal organizations can do to help provide service in this most needful area, we want to learn first hand how existing programs work to combat this problem in Russia.

Our hope is that this extensive and unique research will eventually result in more effective NGOs, adoption agencies and shed light on how we can assist the tragic cycle of orphans in Russia once they leave the orphanages unequipped for life.

In order to learn first hand how existing programs work in Russia, I aspire to the following:

I will intern with a well-respected program entitled “Women and Children First,” under the facilitation of an established American NGO (MiraMed Institute - www.miramed.org – my American NGO in Russia that approves and is aware of what I am doing).

I will place myself in the system to learn and observe. I will not be doing direct research with, or on, any individuals. I will intern with MiraMed's professionals and become accustomed to their work.

My research will be based on course and curriculum evaluation of “Women and Children First,” my observation of their program and perhaps some limited involvement.

They have a great deal of crucial curriculum. By researching the program, “Women and Children First,” I will gain a greater understanding of how such current programs utilize their curriculum and how they work and interact with orphanages in order to prepare the orphan for integration into society.

This will help us in answering the question – How we can better address the tragic cycle of orphans in Russia once they leave the orphanages unequipped for life?

Our objective for this research is to make baby steps towards better understanding that issue.