Change has swept through the childcare systems of Southeast Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ideologies that once prevailed in the countries of that region. Alongside the persecution of political opponents and dissenters of all kinds, the gross mistreatment of children in state care was one of the great evils that blighted those societies where Communism held sway. Many of the old-style orphanages have simply closed, replaced by foster systems, others have been converted to small group homes, a far cry from the old model of having maybe 150 children under one roof. However, the reality is that there are still state-run facilities where parentless children grow up with completely inadequate support for their needs and little or no effective preparation for outside life.
A few orphanages still operate in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau. Our partners, Beginning of Life (BoL), recently secured permission to trial lesson materials developed under our joint BRVC programme with the children in one of these orphanages. A sobering event two weeks before the BoL team began their work had prompted desperate orphanage staff to reach out for help. It was discovered that some of the children had started cutting each other with mirror shards in disputes over who was stronger. The trauma these children had been through, and were now inflicting on each other, required a serious intervention. The orphanage staff were unsure how to lighten the dark mood that gripped the children, so they sought outside support.
The need for action was acute, but the orphanage administration was sceptical about BoL’s proposed programme. In some places, the old attitudes are dying very slowly indeed. With decades of experience, the BoL team knows how the child-care system can ruin young lives. They have seen the joyless faces of small children, the negativity and aggression of young teens and the fear in the eyes of those approaching the time when they have to leave the only home they ever knew, as grim as it was. Now they had an opportunity to try a new approach.
The BoL team supplemented their lessons with art-therapy to help the young people work out the emotions they were dealing with so misguidedly. Orphanage staff also received training from a specialist psychologist, to help them support the children and cope themselves. The lessons devoted to emotions were noted as being particularly helpful to the children. One of the lessons for 11 and 12-year-olds was about anger, and how to manage this emotion better. In the lesson, anger is compared to a volcano, which does terrible damage when it erupts. This type of language and imagery allowed the team to communicate ideas to the children in a way that they were able to understand.
Helping these children and those charged with their care is a great privilege and so far, the signs are encouraging that the work being done here is making a real difference. This has also been an opportunity to show that the materials developed under the BRVC programme are effective in a variety of settings, including schools, families, youth groups, and child-care institutions.
For these particular children, the BoL team has been able step into a serious situation, and with caring and careful use of its thoughtfully developed materials, has been able to let some light into lives that were starting to look darker by the day.