News
On 20 January Maria’s Children were invited to visit the museum-flat of Sergey Obraztsov, talented actor and stage director, founder of the unique puppet theatre and its changeless leader for over 60 years.
On 26 January the final stage of the annual Applied art festival for young special needs' people took place at the Moscow Planetarium.
A short film documenting the annual Clown Trip to Russia, led by Patch Adams in November 2015. Created by: Asya Segalovich, Sofia-Zlata Shestakovskaya, Mariia Vereshchak, Joe Worthington
On 17 February Maria’s Children and a group of kids from boarding school №31 visited a contact zoo “The Forest Embassy”, a special place where one can not only watch interesting animals but also to approach them very closely and even touch them as all the animals are domesticated, calm and friendly.
Today, in addition to our regular art lessons, we had a culinary master-class which was held by a volunteer group from InterNations Community. In the beginning we created various sweet buns and then altogether degusted the result with great pleasure. Imagine the smell that filled the studio! Besides, the tea that we drank was also unusual – it was grown on intact banks of the Western Lake and has a thousand-years history. One of our today’s guest brought it straight from China. Both children and grown ups enjoyed everything very much - the process and the result, and everyone was glad to get acquainted. Thank you, dear InterNations volunteers, we are always glad to have such guests!
Today the Moscow Conservatory graduates Dasha Popras and Nastya Larionova paid a musical visit to our children. Dasha dropped in several times before with sweets but this time she brought her instrument – contrabass (surely, our piano is always ready to join in. The young girls performed rare and beautiful music by Schubert, Gliere, Saint-Saens. Some children even practiced a little bit to sound the instruments. It was wonderful, unusual and inspiring. Thank you, Dasha and Nastya!
On 21-28 February our traditional winter camp took place at Sorochany resort. 20 children from the Family Care Assistance Center “Sputnik”, 12 orphanage graduates, Maria’s Children and PELICAN volunteers and staff members enjoyed snowboarding, skiing and skating from morning till night.
On 19 March we held a training for children from the Family Care Assistance Center “Sputnik” and staff members of “Agroterra” company at the Nazaryevo recreation center. We became friends with “Agroterra” two years ago, and last November we altogether painted colorful pictures on the walls of the children’s home in Efremov, Tula region.
This time we played our traditional theatric and team-building games.
It was the 10th time that Maria’s Children went to Beslan. From year to year our friendship with beslani children and adults becomes even stronger – so much was done and experienced together!
There is a place, that we deeply love, on Bolshaya Dmitrovka street, not far from the studio – a vegetarian restaurant “Fresh”. It not only offers healthy and delicious food to its guests but also delivers its meals to our art center three times a week, and the children always welcome the tasty treats with unabashed joy. We express our huge gratitude to Irina Azarova and to all the caring and concerned restaurant staff! The children from the Family Care Assistance Center “Yunona” and orphanage graduates, enrolled in the PELICAN Foundation programmes, drew a picture-collage, gathered together and brought it to the restaurant with a great joy. Hope it gladdened our friends from “Fresh” as well!
On 13 of April volunteers from the “Sberbank Insurance” company visited orphanage graduates at the studio on Dmitrovka. First part of the evening was dedicated to collective preparation of cupcakes. The young people and the guests split in two teams and cooked many mini-cakes using berries as a decoration. After that we had a tea-party, during which the volunteers told the young people what does insurance exist for, what kinds of insurance could be useful for them, where and how one can obtain insurance. Thank you, our dear friends, for such an interesting and delicious evening!
On 26-31 March staff members of the Charitable Fund “Pelican” and five teachers of the Beslan School №1 travelled to Spain. The journey took place in the framework of the “Programme of professional development and psychological support of teachers of Beslan”. We express our gratitude to Sophie Nash for her warm welcome and Inessa Dorokhova for the organizational help.
On 14 of April a group of children from the Family Care Assistance Center “Yunona” went to an edutainment park “Kidzania”, opened in Moscow not so long ago.
Last week one of our good friends and donors gave us 50 tickets to Nick Vujicic’s performance as a gift. So on Thursday, 14thof April, several graduates (from the PELICAN Foundation) and high school students from the Family Care Assistance Center “Sputnik” and the boarding-school #31 for children with locomotor system disorders set out for the meeting with Nick.
On 15 April the biologist and scientist Ilya Kolmanovskiy held an interactive seminar at the studio on Dmitrovka. Children and graduates, staff members, volunteers and guests learnt about the fish called Dipterus that existed about 400 millions years ago in Devonian period. Dipterus belongs to a group of extinct species of lungfish (it used both gills and lungs while breathing).
On the 17th of April we celebrated Maria’s Children birthday. Many of our children hadn’t been born yet when Maria, Ilya, their friends and relatives founded this organization in 1997. Now we have the studio and, most importantly, we have each other – children, adults, mature children and their own children.
Now there is a huge overhaul of pipelines at the studio on Dmitrovka street, so all our graduates moved to the studio on Delegatskaya with all their art activities and studies. Yesterday several volunteers from Apple visited our young people with a pizza-baking master-class.
On 27 April we had a wonderful opportunity to pay a guest visit to the head office of “DIXY group of companies” in Ochakovo. We took part at a charity fair organized for the company staff members. As the company’s President Pedro Pereira da Silva stressed in his welcoming speech, the company exerts every effort to be socially responsible. The staff members were so inspired by the speech and sincere children’s art that they showed genuine interest and generosity, having bought a lot of our children’s handiwork. Thus, we raised 26100 Roubles, for which we are extremely grateful! It’s not the first year that DIXY supports our studio, transferring funds within its programme “Caring neighbors” for our daily art classes and developing activities for children-orphans. We express our sincere gratitude to the company’s administration, fair organizers, personally Elena Bondarenko and all the DIXY staff members for their support and warm welcome! Hopefully we will have more meetings and to continue our cooperation!
On the 17th of May our old friends from Germany - artists Nina Geling and Ekkahart Bouchon visited our studio with the aim to hold an unusual art event with the group from psychoneurological institution №16. Nina and Ekkahart brought their “variabili”, as they call it.
On the 19th of May six people from the psychoneurological institution №16 sailed on a cruising yacht along the Moskva-river, thanks to our wonderful new volunteer Irina.
On the 22nd of May, as every year, we sailed on the Ship of our Hopes. Children from all the orphanages and children’s homes we cooperate with, spent an unforgettable day together.
On the 25thof May a group of young people from the psychoneurological institution №11,their arts teacher Anna Andreeva, volunteers Larisa and Irina visited the historic fine arts museum - natural reserve of Vassily Dmitrievich Polenov in the Tula region.
On 12-13 June a group of orphanage graduates, PELICAN staff members and volunteers went on a journey to Rostov Veliky to master a rare art technique of vitreous enamel under the guidance of an extraordinarily talented person – Russian artist Mikhail Selishchev.
Today we hosted volunteers from one of our friendly companies. They already visited us about a year ago, got acquainted with kids from the Family care assistance center “Yunona” and held a culinary master-class for them. This time even more volunteers came so there were two master-classes with the same children from “Yunona”- a culinary one and a master-class on modelling fruits.
On 1 June the XIII International art festival of children, teenagers and young adults with special needs “The Seven-Colour Wishing Flower” took place. By tradition we presented works of our children at the festival. The exhibition was run at the Art Lyceumin Zelenograd.
On 16-30 July our deeply loved traditional summer camp at Sorochany resort took place. This time it hosted 9 children from the Family care assistance center “Yunona” (Moscow), 17 – from the children’s home “Solnyshko” (Filimonki settlement, Mosow region), 8 pupils from the Beslan school №1 and 5 young adults from psychoneurological institution. An international team of volunteers from Moscow (including our orphanage graduates), Beslan, USA and Canada took care about them.
Plain-air at Vorontsovsky Park on 10 August.
While most of our children are on holidays at summer camps, children from the Family Care Assistance Center Yunona that remained in Moscow started to visit our center more often. When it is warm and sunny you want to spend more time outdoors, so sometimes we arranged plein-airs where we drew, played games and picnicked.
It is the third year running that we participate in the festival “Kind Moscow”, timed to the Town Day, at a mini-park on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. Today we managed to raise 26 450 Roubles.
Last Saturday, the 24th of September, we visited Yandex with children from the Family care assistance center “Sputnik” and orphanage graduates.
On 7 October our guest Irina Khodyreva taught the children to make cartoons. It appeared to be a time-consuming but very absorbing activity. Two-hour work resulted in a 30 second animated film "Falling Leaves". Hope you will enjoy it! We thank Irina for such an exciting lesson and look forward to meeting her again at our studio!
On 12 November the annual Charity Ball of Maria’s Children Art Center and Charitable Foundation Pelican took place at Metropol hotel, one of Moscow’s most beautiful historic buildings. The event’s programme included a gourmet dinner, dance performance by children from the Filimonki children’s home, live music, loud and silent charity auctions of Maria’s Children students works, lottery, gift fair and dances.
Maria’s Children & Pelican Exhibition
Maria’s Children Art Center & Charitable Foundation PELICAN present:
Exhibition of artworks by children-orphans
“Children Behind the Looking Glass”
sponsored by Sberbank, Charitable Fund of Sberbank “Investment into the future” and Rosinter Restaurants Holding
4-22 November 2016, halls 13-14
Central House of Artists, Krymski Val, 10
On recent Saturdays - 5 and 12 November - our children from Family Care Assistance Centers “Raduga” and “Sputnik” were invited to PokeVille Café on Barrikadnaya. There they had lots of fun and a delicious lunch. The kids drew pictures, played games, sang songs, danced, made special pokemon’s hamburgers and then ate them with a great appetite.. It was really cheerful and yummy! Thank you to Yulia Aseeva and Poke Ville Café for the warm welcome!
Last weekend the Beauty salon “Follow me” invited our girls-graduates to create a fresh image. They were offered new hair-styles and even new hair-colors. All the day long we discussed how to treat your hair in home conditions and after that we had a little tea-party with sweets. The girls were really happy with that Sunday. Thank you very much to the whole Follow Me team! It was a very useful and pleasant day!
Dear friends!
On 11 December Russia’s largest Christmas Fair DUSHEVNY BAZAAR will take place and Maria’s Children will participate in it as usual.
Venue: Moscow, Gostinny Dvor ( Ilyinka street, 4) Time: 11 AM – 7 PM.
You are very welcome!
On 30 November our graduates and staff members welcomed volunteers Dasha and Alisa from the “Book Guide”, organization of professional tutors in reading. We talked about reading, books, favorite literary characters.
On 19 December Maria’s Children took part in the New Year activities at the Tverskoy District Center of Social Services. Our staff member Irina held master-class on souvenirs from yarn for local pensioners, who twisted pompons with great enthusiasm and then used them to create chicken, a snowmen or just fluffy balls.
On 19 and 20 December our children from the Family care assistance center “Sputnik” and young people from the Psychoneurological institution No 16 attended a New Year master-class at Marriott Hotel on Novy Arbat street. First, they formedbiscuits with special cookie cutters and while they baked, one of the pastry-chefs, Irina, showed us around the restaurant’s confectionary. It was really impressive to see how many clever devices real pastry-makers use!
On 21 December several orphanage graduates visited the Moscow Regional Volleyball Center where they met with a women’s team “Zarechye-Odintsovo”. There our young people had a lucky opportunity to play with stars of Russian volleyball. We thank the head coach Vadim Pankov and all his team for such a warm and friendly welcome!
In November-December Maria’s Children took part in New Year charitable fairs where we raised funds to carry on our programmes. The outcomes are the following:
On24 December we held a New Year party for kids from the neighborhood and also for children and grandchildren of our staff members and volunteers. This time we welcomed actors from the Arts Center “Sreda” with their “Travelling Theatre” programme.
We have been celebrating the upcoming New Yearthe whole week. For each children’s or adults’ orphanage group we organized a special New Year art class followed by a tea-party with cheerful congratulations and presents. Thank you to the Father Frost Vanya and the Snow-Maiden Yulia!
