Family Center News
21 November 2011
The families taking part in our Family Center Program got the Christmas gifts
from Ararat Park Hyatt volunteers
The volunteers from Ararat Park Hyatt have acted as patrons of Diema’s Dream Family Center for a long time. This program aims rendering assistance to the families raising the children with developmental disabilities. This time the volunteers could not stay apart and presented three disabled children the gifts they had dreamt of.
Every family could make the necessary selection from toys, rehabilitation equipment, clothes or shoes. As a result Maxim Azarov received a cube to develop fine motor skills and a special “Turtle” toy; Sasha Kiseleva – orthopedic boots and Timofey Benetskiy – a CD player. The children were happy to get the presents when their parents looked forward to new abilities of development.
We have no doubt this great initiative will be prolonged since New Year Eve is pretty close! We invite other companies for cooperation!
01 November 2011
The Family Centre Continues Its Work
In October the Family Centre resumed its work – this programme helps families with children who suffer from severe development
disorders. Diema’s Dream Fund currently helps over 60 families. The Grenaderovyh family is celebrating – Maria
has learned an Agnia Barto poem by heart and has improved her enunciation. Meanwhile, Tima Benetskii learned how to tell the ‘Kolobok’ fairy tale. The teachers are also very happy for Nastya Kovalenko – she started to actively move her arms and shoulders, try to move independently, keep her balance and even dance! Nastya, Tima and Maria share a common misfortune – a severe form of Cerebral Palsy which impedes their physical and mental development. Many doctors have already given up on them but their parents refuse to believe that their children are a ‘lost cause’.
It is specifically for these children and their families that Diema’s Dream Fund initiated the Family Centre programme in 2006.
Frequently these families lose all contact with the outside world and are leftalone with their troubles. However, recently the specialists at the Centre have managed to prove that there are no ‘lost causes’ among these children! What is important is adopting an individually tailored approach and adequate development-encouraging methods. The specialists at the Centre try to encourage the kids’ development and provide psychological and judicial help to their children. As a result of different exercises focused on arts, defectology and speech therapy, children with complicated diagnoses start to react to what is happening around them, talk, sing and even perform small skits.
Unfortunately, due to the financial crisis, the financial support from corporate donors has practically stopped and the Centre
now lacks headquarters. The specialists have to selflessly operate through a series of home-visits; after all if the therapy was to stop, the children’s development will slow down again… but time is ticking and our achievements could be lost forever.
The Family Centre desperately needs help to pay for specialists, as well as a permanent space for therapy sessions. You can make a donation on our homepage www.ddfund.ru.