Fall newsletter

Children’s Center in Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky

All of last spring’s graduates are continuing their education. This wonderful news fulfills a major goal of the director and staff.

New project with another Children’s Center

In addition to our ongoing work with the Center we now support volunteer work by Michael and Irina Shipley with older children at a Center in Chernovsky, a town near Chita. Michael, an American, first went to Siberia on a Baha’i service trip in 1991 where he met his future wife, Irina who is from Chita. They settled there in 1992. In the past, Michael assisted Siberian Bridges by arranging a tour of the region for an American family, and also with the teacher program we had earlier in our history. For more than two years now on a weekly basis, Michael and Irina—Michael says Irina really leads the work—bring some of the teenagers from Chernovsky to their apartment, hold birthday parties, excursions, and even help two of the boys learn to play guitar. The group is: Edik, Artyom, Alexei L., Alexei K., Anton, Boris, Ivan, Anastasia, Andrei, Vitya, and sometimes Alexander.

One boy in particular, Vitya Nefyodov, is studying to be an artist, and Michael and Irina help with his tuition. Our contribution to his education encouraged him to get an after school job to supplement our small grant. They are good friends of Siberian Bridges and we are delighted to be able to support their efforts to make life a little better for some of the young people in another orphanage.