Orphanz

What we do

The Urals Orphans Foundation is a small charity, which was set up by Inna Iranyi in June 2000. The charity is funded on a regular basis by its founder and a small group of individuals, mainly friends and family. The number of our supporters has been growing steadily over the years with more and more people nominating the Urals Orphans Foundation as their charity of choice for special fundraising events. The charity expenses are kept to a bare minimum and more than 95% of all donations go to the children. Fundraising is predominantly done from London, though our sponsors are based in 6 different countries – Australia, Canada, Israel, Russia, UK and US. The funds are subsequently sent to our chief coordinator Evgenya Greenberg in Ekaterinburg who keeps in touch with the children’s homes we support on a regular basis. We currently look after seven children’s homes in the Urals region. Government funding to these children’s homes has been reduced so it is an everyday struggle to keep up with basic children’s needs and that is when we get involved - from nappies, toys, books and shoes to more sophisticated items like cameras, computers and refrigerators. We have helped many children over the years to keep their little feet warm but it is an on-going process and you can never say that the task has been completed as there are always more things on the list, which we cannot supply due to the limited funds. It is unlikely that the situation will get better any time soon. Currently there are almost 700,000 orphans in Russia, more than during the 2nd World War. Two thirds of these children are social orphans, meaning that their parents are not capable of looking after them. A change in the law in 2008 resulted in 30,000 children being returned back into the children’s home system, from foster families, as state funding has been drastically reduced and many families either could not afford to keep those kids in their families or could not make any money out of them anymore. Unfortunately we cannot change the system but we can make the lives of these children more comfortable and bring a smile to their faces with a new book, toy or sometimes just an apple.