In the summer of 2009, my Charity Foundation team took a trip to Tatarstan to gather data on children’s establishments in the republic, many of which they visited. We then selected a few boarding schools that will be provided with computer classrooms and internet access.
The first place we selected was “Observatoriya” - Tatarstan’s only children’s tuberculosis dispensary.
This is what my team found out about the dispensary: It’s located in Zelenodolsky district and provides treatment and rehabilitation for children between the ages of 7 and 18 with closed forms of T.B. Most of them are little children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and many have other health problems in addition to TB. The clinic also treats children from orphanages. Treatment can last for up to two years, so the clinic has a school that is used by between 100 and 150 school-age children every year. This school is quite old and hasn’t been renovated for a long time. It has neither properly equipped computer classrooms nor computers, which means that the children are cut off from the world around them for a long period of time. (They are not allowed to leave the clinic during their treatment and often fall behind the other kids in their school when they get back home.) We decided we definitely had to help the little boys and girls who get treatment here.
* A computer classroom will be set up in this room
A room in the school will be fitted out as a computer classroom. Furniture and computers will be purchased, as well as an internet will be connected to computers. I hope once the kids get access to these computers and the internet it will help them not only to keep up with the others at school, but also to cope more easily with the treatment and the isolation from the outside world.
The second children’s establishment in Tatarstan where the Foundation plans to open a computer classroom is a day-care centre called “Selet” for schoolchildren from low-income families in Apastovo district. The centre’s main purpose is to keep the children busy after school through activity groups and extracurricular lessons. Last year, Selet catered for over 1,500 pupils, and it also works with young disabled persons. The kids are bussed into the centre, where teachers take them through the extracurricular courses and they have an opportunity interact with one other. The Selet day-care centre also does a lot of work with kids from foster families, including those with health problems.
* The “Selet” children’s arts centre
Incidentally, when my team and I were discussing the results of their trip and selecting children’s centres for the project, I was struck by the fact that there are no orphanages in this part of Tatarstan. All the children who have ended up, for one reason or another, without parents live with foster families.
The “Selet” centre has recently moved to new premises, where they have set aside a room to be used as a computer classroom. They’ve decorated the room themselves, but they didn’t have the money to buy the actual computers….I really wanted to support this centre by including it the Foundation’s internet access programme. In the very near future, the Foundation will purchase 10 computers and all the furniture Selet needs and will also arrange an internet connection.
Computer classrooms are now being set up in Zelenodolsk and Apastovo. Our plans for the near future include a computer classroom for one of Nizhnekamsk district’s boarding schools.
