The Comfort Foundation

The past two summers I have spent a majority of my time in Vologda, Russia, volunteering my time with the Comfort Foundation. Comfort Foundation is dedicated to meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of underprivileged children and orphans in the Vologda Oblast. Today there are an estimated 842,000 orphans in Russia alone, and 95% of these children have a living parent and are considered social orhans. Poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse and other social problems are the primary reasons that parents abandon their children to Russian orphanages or lose their parental rights. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of children growing up in state-run institutions, there are countless others that roam the streets, living in railroad stations, sewers or any place in which they can find shelter. Each child in a state-run orphanage is diagnosed as either normal or disabled at the age of four . More than two-thirds of the children in Russian institutions have been incorrectly diagnosed as mentally deficient and given the label "imbecile" for the rest of their lives with little hope for change. Those children classified as normal usually remain in a state-supported orphanage until they are approximately 16-17 years of age. Typically, they are ill-equipped for life on their own, and many fail to make the transition from institutional to independent living. As the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Russia explodes (AIDS in Russia is growing faster than in any other country in the world), orphans become an increasingly at-risk group. As part of the Comfort Foundation, I build lasting relationships with the children in the orphanages, and create programs and opportunities for them to learn trades and give them options for after they are released at such a young age from the orphange.