Students at Samara State University with alumni of U.S. exchange programs organized for children holiday in Togliatti Orphanage "Harmony".
Initially, organizers of the festival provided a short story about American holidays, then spent a little quiz - showing children pictures of those who were supposed to guess what kind of holiday in question. A little play with the children in the "snowball".
Our competitions have been no loser! We won everything! After the contest organizers gave the children gifts: albums for drawing, coloring books, pencils, pens, candy, juice, world map, ledyanki, jump ropes, a few games, etc.
Here are some impressions of the participants in the project:
Irina Paramonova, Elena Andreeva:
The orphanage was founded in 1995. Now there are 50 wonderful and beautiful children at the aged of 4-10. All of them are divided into four groups. There is educator in every group who keeps an order and controls the pastime of children in the group. During the day they have different activities such as lessons of music and painting, common school subjects, sport activities, etc. The orphanage work is concentrated on enhancing prospects for children’s personal investments, development of socialization basic foundations, improvement of their communication skills, and expansion of their minds and capabilities.
We were able to raise enough funds to buy presents to every child. Each of them got sweets, juice, colored pencils, albums, coloring books, New Year caps in a gift packet. Moreover we bought books, balls, jump-ropes, ice-boats, map of the world, games for the brain, dominos, etc. These children were very glad to get everything. Getting presents they started to share their opinions, emotions and feelings between each other. It was unforgettable moment to see their smiles and glitters in eyes.
At the earliest possible date we place the stands with photos of our meeting in the hall of our University. So everybody could know about our project. I hope it would help us to involve more people to take part in the same projects as we did. I’m positive that developing such kind of charity projects in our country we can attract attention of many people to the problem of orphan children. There are near 800 thousand orphans in Russia nowadays and everyone needs care and support.
Next month we plan to hold developmental meeting in another Samara orphanage. While we can give a piece of happiness to these children I’m sure we’ll do our best to make their lives a little bit better. Also I would like to thank everybody who helped us this time and express my hope that this good cooperation will continue.Thank you very much want to say alumni of U.S. exchange programs (Anna Derinova, Irina Pugacheva, and many others) who helped us organize this celebration!
First of all children were shown the map of the world and explained, where the USA are situated. They have got known about its states and seen pictures with its main sightseeings. Then we told them about 3 american holidays: Groundhog Day, Halloween and Christmas. The choice was not random. Children did not know about such animal like a groundhog as it does not live in Russia. They laughed at funny Halloween pictures and were surprised to know, that in the USA their coevals put on costumes of different creatures and go from one home to another with the words “trick or treat”. What about Christmas, some kids already knew, that it is the main american holiday and were aware of how Santa Clause gets into the house, but it was a surprise for the majority to get known, that American children leave stockings by the chimney on the Christmas Eve and find presents in them next morning.

After the presentations one of the students played two games with the children. During the first one they were shown different pictures and tried to guess to what holidays those pictures referred. The second one was called “Antonyms”. Kids named contrary words to the suggested ones. They all were very active and got the gifts. On almost 15 thousand roubles, that we gathered, we bought many kinds of sweets, colouring books with pencils, albums and New Year caps. When everyone put on the caps, we presented them a big map, some developing games, books, balls, jump-ropes, ice-boats. As the time was limited, we had to finish and say good-bye to happy children.