On December 9th -10th, 2014, the "Helpus" Project of the "Happy Child" Foundation arranged an experimental trip to Kiev for twenty adult fosterlings of the Kirovo nursing home of Zaporozhye region. It turned out that it is quite possible to use the pension savings from their bank accounts to pay for such trips. Quite often pensions of patients of psychoneurological nursing homes remain unused for years, depreciate due to inflation and are not used for the benefit of these people. The management of the Kirovo nursing home received the consent of the public council to use pensions for organization of an informative trip to the capital of Ukraine. They spent two wonderful days in Kiev.

Independence is defined as right to choose and make unassisted decisions, possibility to manage one’s own life.

For the first time in their lives these young people have experienced the exciting feeling of independence in decision-making when purchasing tickets, food, and accommodation. The experiment was a success. They are very pleased with the trip and ask to keep working in this direction.

Here are responses and comments of the trip participants:

"Good day, dear employees of the "Happy Child" foundation!

Girls of the Kirov nursing home are writing to you. We would like to thank you very much for the trip arranged by you to the glorious city of Kiev. Having seen the beauty of our capital for the first time, we were impressed by the sights that we had seen! After visiting the museum, we learned a lot about our modern army and weapons that were used in the past. We also visited the main street of Khreschatyk, walked along Institutskaya street (where more than a hundred people were shot) and saw in reality the results of the last year's events, which were very painful for us. It was as if we have endured the situation together with the people who had died for our country.

We also visited St. Sophia’s and St. Michael’s Golden Doomed Cathedrals, and Goloseyevsky monastery, where we spent the night. Together with the accompanying staff we went into the church where we lit candles for the health of loved ones.

Not wishing to miss the given opportunity, we went to see the main Christmas tree of the country, although it was not fully decorated yet but we liked it anyway.

Passing on Andrew's descent, we took a good look at its beauty. We also took a lot of pictures at every possible place to have a good memory of this trip.

Having arrived home under such a great impression, we told our friends about everything we had seen and experienced during the wonderful two days. Other girls seeing our shining eyes also wanted to go to Kiev and see the capital of our country. Therefore, we are looking forward to the next trip with you!!!

Thank you very much, dear friends, for the given opportunity to travel and see the beauties of our country!!!

Yours,

The Kirovo nursing home!"

The question is why patients of dozens of neuropsychiatric nursing homes all over Ukraine have been living there for years without a slightest chance of leaving the territory when there is a legal mechanism to arrange trip payments using their pension accruals? The "Helpus" will keep organizing trips for people of different psychoneurological homes and convincing top management of nursing homes to pay more attention to leisure and development of patients.

We will be very grateful for feasible financial support of such trips - despite the fact that fosterlings pay for their travel and food using their savings, we still need to cover the expenses on the accompanying volunteers and tutors. Or maybe you would like to become a volunteer in such trips.

You can help right now -

We will be glad to answer any questions - contact the foundation staff