Children’s Home

AMURTEL started the Lotus Center in Ulaanbaatar in 1994 as a response to the growing street children crisis. It is a pioneer project for child care in Mongolia, being the first to move away from the Soviet institutional style, and the first to locate in ordinary suburban surroundings.

The Lotus Center is a series of family style homes for 130 children and infants in Yarmag district. The children live in small groups that provide an atmosphere as close as possible to normal family life. They share the same responsibilities they would in a normal family, such as helping with the daily chores. As a result the children have a mutual support structure that they have never experienced before.

Children of the Lotus Children Center

In 1998 the new infant and mothering center was completed. This has greatly improved the lives of the infants currently living there. A greenhouse provides vegetables during the long winter and running water saves endless hard work carrying water and has greatly improved the hygiene in the center.  AMURTEL often take in infants that the government orphanage does not accept. One recent arrival was born with syphilis and abandoned by the mother; another was abandoned in the street and weighed a mere 1.4 kilograms. Even if the babies have little chance of survival, we give them a home and lots of affection rather than leave them unwanted and uncared for in the hospital.

Kindergarten

AMURTEL also runs a kindergarten school. The school combines children from the home with children from poor neighboring families. Unfortunately due to the economic situation in Mongolia people have to pay to attend government schools. We offer an education to those who are too poor to attend government schools, even if they are over kindergarten age.

Children Dressing Up

We also provide accommodation for women and their children who are escaping violent domestic situations. They are referred to us by the Center Against Violence and the Mongolian Women’s Lawyers Association. The Center has also helps many ultra poor families with income projects and food assistance, so that poverty does not tear their family unit apart.

Famila AMURTEL Children’s Home
AMURTEL runs a children’s home in children’s home in Panatau, a rural village in the mountains east of Bucharest. The children’s home has 16 children from the ages 5-19, and was initiated in 1992, soon after AMURTEL arrived in Romania and identified one of the most urgent needs to be that of children abandoned in state homes. The home is situated in Panatau, a small village in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains where the children grow up in a natural and healthy environment. The children are divided into two family units. The older group of our children all came from state children’s homes where they experienced severe neglect, were tied to their beds, and often beaten. The younger group of children came to us in 2000, and had all been abandoned in state hospitals after birth, and also experienced severe neglect. Many of our children have learning and psychological disabilities and need extra attention. We have 10 staff and a “mother”, a trained psychiatric nurse that has grown up with the first child and will grow old in the house. The children call her Mami. We also have two cows, a guard dog, a donkey and frequently other cats and animals adopted from the neighborhood.

The AMURTEL Famila
AMURTEL operates a sustainable Organic Farming Project  in Poieni. The farm has 2 hectares of orchards and vegetable gardens that provides a source of food for the children’s home. In addition the house is used as a summer house for the children.

Sunrise Playschool Bucharesti Noi
The kindergarten in Bucharest began in 1991 to serve the needs of children in a poor neighborhood in the northern area of Bucharest. The program is based on the alternative model of holistic education, Neo-humanist education, which promotes creativity, learning through play, and nurtures self-esteem and social skills by emphasizing the loving example and role of the teacher. One of the aims of Neo-humanist education is to awaken a thirst for learning in the children, and parents consistently report that the children do exceptionally well in school after the preparation they receive in the kindergarten.

The play way method is used in the kindergarten
Sunrise Playschool Mihai Bravu

In 1992, with the support received from the Infant Massage Association (Sweden) and other sponsors, a house was purchased, renovated and equipped. It was the first school in Bucharest to implement a program of integration and individual therapy for disabled children and today there are only three kindergartens like this in the Bucharest region, though the social marginalization and stigmatization of such children is gradually improving. The program is also based on Neo-humanist education. The children with disabilities participate fully in the daily routine and receive individual therapy and massage from a kineto-therapist.