Big Change

According to extensive research (Prosecutor General’s Office, Human Rights Watch , World Bank, UNICEF, Institute of Childhood of the Russian Children’s Fund), only 10-15% of the children brought up in children's homes can fully integrate into mainstream life by finding a job, starting a family and having their own children. Of the remainder one third of them become involved in crime, one third becomes homeless, 40% alcoholics and drug abusers, 10% commit suicide during the first year of independent life. 

“Big Change” is a charitable fund established in 2002 to provide assistance to graduates from orphanages to complete their education and enter college or university and to choose a profession. The young people who in their early childhood were diagnosed as “learning-disabled”, become college and university students after taking classes at the Big Change (BC).

The staff of the Big Change have been requested from other regions in Russia to run training for specialists working with orphans in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar Krai, Pskov Oblast.

Over the next few years Big Change aims to:

• Increase its intake of students by training new staff
• Establish contacts with other educational and social institutions addressing similar problems
• Disseminate best practices of  Big Change in other regions
• Establish methodical provision of developmental educational programs of the organisation