CSW has teamed up with Songs of Praise host
Pam Rhodes to help transform the care of orphans and abandoned children across the Russian Federation. Pam also made an appeal through Premier Radio for more funds for this vital work to change the country's entire system of child care.
Until recently, Russian orphans were thrown into institutions, where they were subdued with drugs and left to rot. But a fact-finding visit by Caroline Cox and action by CSW and others has begun to change all that.

CSW has piloted an entirely new foster care scheme to give orphan children the love they need and restore their dignity and place in society. More than 130 children have been cared for at Christian Solidarity's Our Family orphanage in Moscow since the project began five years ago. Among them is Alyona, who was sent out on the streets at the age of three to pick up cigarette ends.

She lived in a single room, sharing her mother's bed with a constant stream of different men. One day Alyona fell from the window of her fourth floor flat, suffering multiple fractures. She may have been pushed. A hospital referred her to the Our Family project, run by CSW in Moscow. After a year's rehabilitation she was placed in a foster home and given professional support and loving care. Four years later Alyona is a healthy child who is doing well at school.

CSW's foster scheme is rapidly taking hold across Russia. New laws and decrees have been passed to set up facilities. Our Russian staff have trained groups of professionals from 10 regions, who are now developing their own care and family support services. As a result, more than 330 children in Novgorod have been able to remain with their own families. It now seems increasingly likely that the CSW scheme could become the main model of care for abandoned and orphaned children across all 89 regions of the Russian Federation. More training will be given to child care professionals, as funding permits.

Says Mervyn Thomas, CSW's Chief Executive: 'Children in Russia depend on the Our Family project and we, in turn, depend on the generosity of our supporters to help them. We are delighted to have been able to team up with Pam Rhodes to let a wider audience know about our work, and we hope for a fantastic response.'