What we manage now depends on our today’s resilience
Blagoe Delo is in quarantine since March, 27. The works are closed and we operate online. The only workshop functioning is the tailor’s, where locals and the team’s relatives sew face masks on demand.
It is especially difficult for persons with all kinds of mental challenge – those who are in the care of nonprofit organizations. Isolation, house restriction, communication limit, changes in the normal way of life… All this is a hundred times harder for mentally disturbed people.
“Majority of ours are under a huge stress”, – says Vera Simakova, the Head of the organization. “What am I punished for ? Why can’t we go to Blagoe Delo ?” – these are the questions that torture our kids. For the families, whose members they are, life also became much more complicated, both psychologically and financially.
That is why the staff of Blagoe Delo has been visiting our wards at home since previous week to communicate, to support, to bring some work to be done at home (Yes, the workshops are closed – so what ?! It won’t last forever. We can make workpieces to be stored for the future !!!). The most struggling families are supplied with foodstuffs. We enquire what is the most acute need and what kind of help is the most sufficient.
“Our main task is to make our kids feel needed and not at all abandoned”, – says Vera Simakova.
But everything said above is half the trouble. The organization itself is on the brink of survival. We are speaking about 23 staff members whose work does not always depend on grants. Theirs is the systematic job of being in charge of employment provision and close support for persons with disabilities. Somehow (and quite miraculously) the apartment of assisted living survives, accommodating at present disabled girls, saved from the neuropsychiatric institution. Last year they started to learn how to live on their own, but without the assistance of our helpmates it’s almost impossible for them to cope. Now we try to render them our distance support.
“That’s it. We sew facemasks, write grant requests, stay in touch with our wards. If only we could afford ourselves not to think about our own survival, then of course all our resources would be channeled towards the well-being of all our wards. What we manage at the moment depends on our today’s resilience.”
There are several ways to support Blagoe Delo:
To donate online or to subscribe to http://delonablago.ru/howtohelp/
To purchase “Blagoe Delo” products. You can choose them online at the new beautiful store www.fromural.ru