Alexey
Soon after she had given birth, Alexey’s mother abandoned him in a maternity hospital in Belarus. Starting life in a baby home, he was eventually transferred to a preschool orphanage for children under the age of six.

When Alexey was assessed for school it was decided that he should be sent to a residential school for children with learning difficulties. Aged just seven, Alexey’s third move in his short life was to the Pravye Mosty institution.

During his time, Alexey became close to a boy called Dima, who had a family but they could not afford to care for him at home. Dima, who was a little older, took Alexey under his wing and treated him like his younger brother.

When Alexey learnt that we were to close the institution, he was nervous about his future and told staff that he wished he were like Dima, whose parents visited when they could and sometimes took him home for weekends. Alexey was extremely sad the day Dima’s parents, who were now financially able to care for him, came to collect Dima from the institution.

A couple of weeks later, Maria, Dima’s mother, came back to the institution to ask if Alexey could come and visit the family at weekends, as Dima talked about him so much. After just a few visits, Maria asked if she could apply to adopt Alexey as she could not bear the thought of his having no family to call his own.

Alexey was delighted and we helped prepare him, and his new family, for this life-changing move. Alexey now has the love and support of Maria, or Aunty Maria, as he calls her, and he especially likes it when they sit together and she helps him with his homework.

Fathi
The civil war in Sudan, and its aftermath turned 16 year old Fathi’s life upside down. His family were forced out of their home in the Nuba Mountains during the conflict.

Fathi became separated from his mother and sister whilst they were fleeing and he travelled alone for months, until he ended up in Khartoum. With no one to care for him, eleven year old Fathi had no where to live but on the streets. His life was miserable and, drifting from one day to the next, he fell in with a bad crowd.

Pretty soon, Fathi was arrested for stealing, but because he was so young, the police took him to an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp. IDP camps can be home to hundreds of thousands of people and are bigger than some UK cities. They are not meant to be long-term solutions and so services like education, access to clean water and medical facilities are frequently inadequate. For children living alone, they can be a dangerous place.

Fathi was brought to our attention by one of the camp administrators and having identified him as being extremely vulnerable, we immediately placed him with a foster family in one of our Small Family Homes. Although Fathi struggled to settle in at first, he later said that he took strength from the very idea of being in a family again.

To give him something positive to focus on for the future, we arranged for Fathi to undertake vocational training to become a builder. Once Fathi completed this, he asked to return to school as he now felt ready to try and catch up with his education.

Throughout this time, our social workers counselled Fathi to help him overcome the trauma he had been through and he shared what little details he knew about his family. By a miraculous coincidence, one of our social workers knew a Sultan, a community leader in the IDP camp, who shared Fathi’s surname. In Sudan, surnames reflect the tribe and the area that people come from. When they asked the man if he knew of Fathi or his mother, the man said that he did, as he was actually Fathi’s father. He had split up with Fathi’s mother 10 years previously and had no idea that his son was now living in Khartoum.

Our social workers told Fathi that they had found his father and at Fathi’s wish, they helped him prepare to meet him. Their first meeting was not an easy one, as Fathi did not remember his father, having not seen him for so long. Meanwhile, his father helped us to trace Fathi’s mother and he travelled 300km with our social workers, to show them the town where she lived.

When we met with Fathi’s mother she burst into tears of joy at the mention of his name. She had recently returned to the town but travelled back to Khartoum with the social workers to visit Fathi in our Small Family Home.

Fathi did not hesitate when his mother asked him if he would like to return home and is very happy to be back with his family. He is still in contact with his foster parents and has kept up his education by attending evening classes whilst working during the day. He is in touch with his father and their relationship is developing.

Fathi says his ambition is to become a mechanic and own his own workshop, something that never would have been possible if he were still living on the streets.

Want to meet more children we support?
Meet Aleksander from Bosnia & Herzegovina and Emery from Rwanda.

Also, find out more about how your fundraising efforts will continue to transform the lives of the children we support. You will need Adobe Reader to view these PDF files – download it for free.

Also don't forget to watch our fundraising film featuring The Apprentice’s Nick Hewer!