House for single mothers

According to Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, in Russia 44 thousand social orphans are children whose parents are deprived of parental rights. But how many babies became orphans, because mothers were abandoned in the hospital - it is unknown. Such statistics in Russia are not conducted ...

Masha and the seven -month Matvey. Masha is afraid to take pictures. She lives in a "warm house" because her father refuses to accept an unmarried daughter with a baby	Matvey is happy. He has everything that needs at his age: mom, roof over his head, cozy crib

“Three years ago, when we took up the prevention of refusals, I realized: we need a house where we could settle women who have nowhere to go with newborn children,” says Elena Alshanskaya, president of the volunteer charitable foundation to help orphans. The fund is trying to solve the problem of social orphanage on its own, without a state. And there are more and more such organizations. Let it be a drop in the sea, but to protect even one child from orphanage is a great good.

The project called "Warm House" appeared at the Fund in January 2011. During these two years, it was possible to save 16 children from orphanage at a living mother. The volunteers of Elena Alshanskaya found a shelter along with the babies of women, as a rule, from the former Soviet republics, abandoned by fate to Moscow and the Moscow Region. A two -story brick house for five bedrooms, a large kitchen. Children's chairs, bottles, on TV - a schedule of business duty, “Rules for living in the center of temporary stay for single parents with children“ Warm House ”are attached to the refrigerator. “When they get to us, we sign the contract first for a month, then for six months, and if you really need it, we renew again,” says the psychologist Tatyana Archakova. It happens that doctors from the hospital are calling the fund - they ask volunteers to come and talk with a woman who has nowhere to go with the baby.

Tatyana Archakova is a psychologist. She helps young mothers cope with a crisis life situation	Anastasia is the administrator of the "warm house". She knows everything about his inhabitants

Elena Alshanskaya calls the three typical reasons why young mothers refuse newborn children. The rejection of loved ones: mother and father, especially in the Caucasian republics, flatly refuse to accept their daughter with a baby, brought “in the hem” in the father’s house; lack of their housing; Parting with the father of the child.

In the “Warm House”, young mothers and children live on everything ready: sponsors bring food, clothes, pay for medical care. Psychologists come. Each woman has her own curator - along with him, she must develop a further plan of life, which will allow her to go into independent swimming after rehabilitation in a “warm house”. Now four mothers live in the house. The fifth should come soon. The New Times managed to talk with two.

Here is Masha K. with a seven -month Matvey. She is from Transnistria, she lived in Moscow for several years, studies for a designer-designer. In the sixth month of pregnancy, she broke up with her civil husband, left for her parents, but his father, in fact, kicked out of the house: how is it that the child will be illegitimate. I returned to Moscow, saw a program about the "warm house", found the phone numbers, met with a psychologist. “They won’t keep me here for an infinitely long time,” says Masha, “in Transnistria, I can’t leave for my parents: my father does not allow my mother to talk to me even on the phone. There are two options: to rent with someone like me, a room or establish a relationship with aunt who lives here in Moscow. Together with the curator of Nastya, both of these options are being worked out. ”

Elena allowed to photograph her only from the back. She is still afraid to inform her parents that she had a charming Ksyusha eight months ago

Elena N. is from Moldova. She lived in Moscow for three years, worked as a housekeeper in a rich house on Nikolina Gora. They paid her very well there - she was able to accumulate money. After giving birth, I wandered around my acquaintances. March 1 entered into an agreement with the fund for a month. “I don’t know if they will leave me here for at least a month,” says Elena. “They think that I can go to my parents and they will accept me there.” Ksyusha is eight months old, but I still did not say that I have a child or dad. I’m calling them every Sunday, I say that I work, that everything is fine with me, but it seems that they are already suspecting something. I used to send money to my parents, but now not. I admitted my mother’s sister in everything, and she says that I disgraced the family. In general, I do not want to go to Moldova. There you can’t earn more than 3-4 thousand rubles there in a month, and in Moscow I received 30 thousand per month for cleaning, which took two to three hours a day. ”

The material life of the "warm house" is fully provided by sponsors	Rose 10 months. Her mother is in the hospital. Other inhabitants of the "warm house" care about her

The “warm house” with the life support of its inhabitants, the salary of employees, utility bills and rental costs the fund of 300 thousand per month. The project exists for private donations, and they, as you know, quickly end. Today the fund is looking for sponsors. Elena Alshanskaya says that in Moscow in maternity hospitals about 300 failures per year are fixed. 10% of women who make such a decision are those who have nowhere to go. The children of these women will not become orphans under one condition: if there are more such “warm houses”.

Photos: Igor Starkov