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Moscow’s disadvantaged kids get a helping hand

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How G4S is helping two Russian state homes provide children with skills that could transform their lives

All of Russia’s major cities face a heart-wrenching problem. Thousands of children live on their streets, barely surviving with insufficient food, shelter or warm clothing.

Unbelievably, despite their impoverished state, most of these children do so out of choice.

That’s because living at home with alcoholic parents, perhaps, or residing in an orphanage which offers little in the way of education or encouragement, are regarded by these streetwise kids as much worse alternatives.

Search the Internet for information on Russia’s street children and you will be confronted by conflicting statistics: from 900,000 to four million. The reason for this discrepancy is that no one really knows the size of the problem.

Quite apart from the humanitarian need to help normalise these youngsters’ lives and give them hope for the future, there is also another important consideration. The only way for most of them to survive is to drift into a life of crime, involving robbery, prostitution or drug-dealing.

Successfully tackling the problem should therefore have an impact on crime figures, so it is appropriate that G4S Security Services (Russia) has decided – with full G4S corporate support – to add its own contribution to the many efforts that have been launched to tackle the problem.

"G4S For Children" is very much in line with the Group’s global "giving back to community" philosophy. It is one of five schemes in different countries receiving financial support for the next six years.

The first of these, designed to create sustainable revenues in Malawi, was featured in application/pdf G4S International, September 07, pages 17–18.

G4S Security Services (Russia)’s local management in Moscow believe the most positive way of helping is to support the work of two children’s homes, which are known as "internats". Such establishments are often referred to as "orphanages", though in reality one or both parents of the majority of children in them are still alive.

They have either abandoned their children because – often through alcohol abuse – they are no longer capable of caring for them, or their children have physical or mental problems with which they cannot cope.

Not all internats are well-enough equipped or staffed to provide the children in their care with the loving support and education that they need, and Russia’s current economic situation does not hold out the hope of much improvement for these disadvantaged kids in the near future.

That’s where G4S is hoping to make a vital contribution. Under the leadership of Rusian Zubov, general director of G4S Security Services (Russia), it has identified two internats in the Moscow region – both caring for children with disabilities – which will benefit from G4S support.

The two beneficiaries are the Municipal Institution, Special Secondary School – Internat for Children with Sight Disabilities, and the Specialised School – Internat for Orphans with Health or Physical Development Disabilities.

The Municipal Institution is not an orphanage but a residential special needs school which cares for 120 children, over 100 of whom are totally blind, as well as having central nervous system or respiratory problems. In February next year it will be celebrating its 70th anniversary.

The Specialised School also provides care for 120 children, aged between seven and 18, many of whom – despite their physical disabilities – show a remarkable aptitude for sport. Some have competed up to the level of the Paralympic Games.

G4S will be looking at how best to support both internats, and the purchase of sports apparatus, computers or other items, such as wheelchairs, hearing aids or spectacles, will be high on the list of initiatives that will be considered.

Working in conjunction with the staff of both internats and a consultant who is making no charge, G4S will be supporting at least 100 children at any one time.

In addition, staff from G4S will help the children to speak English, alongside language teachers, as part of the internats’ educational programmes.

"G4S For Children" hopes its community project will throw a lifeline to many of the children, giving them the opportunity to pursue lives as adults that are more promising and rewarding than those endured by Russia’s street children.
    
This page is an edited version of the article featured in the December 2007 edition of International.
Download the full article: application/pdf Moscow’s disadvantaged kids get a helping hand
G4S For Children hopes its community project will throw a lifeline to many of the children, giving them the opportunity to pursue lives as adults that are more promising and rewarding than those endured by Russia’s street children.