Just last week, the team at the Yearn Foundation gathered for its annual summit to plan for 2010. We have an exciting year ahead of us and look forward to growing Yearn and making progress against our mission or providing material and medical needs of Russian orphans and improving the general well-being of Russian orphans (through life skills education, job opportunities, etc.).
Stay tuned!
If you want to get involved with Yearn, send us a note!
The Yearn Foundation has recently partnered with Lost Lake Creative – a creative film agency – to raise awareness of the agency’s Identity Project while also furthering Yearn’s mission.
The first of many gatherings to speak about our missions will be held on October 1 at 7pm MST. The event will be held at the Knight Block Building on 1 East Center Street in Suite 201 in Provo, Utah.
We invite all supporters of the Yearn Foundation, or anyone interested in Russia, to attend.
Over the past few years of my involvement with Yearn Foundation, I’ve had the opportunity to make a few periodic hiatuses to far away lands for a little independent research on big issues. The four months of this summer’s travels took me from Vladivostok to Prague and several places in between, studying issues ranging from the plight of orphans to the horrors of human trafficking. I had the privilege of eating in the home of a village mayor in Armenia, of working alongside foster parents in Russia, and lived with the people of Transnistria. Over the next few weeks on this blog, I’ll be sharing some of the experiences I had, the things I saw, the stories I heard, and exploring the relevance of these issues to the mission of Yearn. Stay tuned…!
In 2006, Brent spent time in Moscow conducting research into the adaptation of orphans into society. He interned with a well-respected program entitled “Women and Children First,” under the facilitation of an established American NGO (MiraMed Institute – www.miramedinstitute.org).
Brent’s research is based on course and curriculum evaluation of “Women and Children First,” first hand observation of their program and some limited involvement.
They have a great deal of crucial curriculum. By researching the program, “Women and Children First,” Brent gained a greater understanding of how such current programs utilize their curriculum and how they work and interact with orphanages in order to prepare the orphan for integration into society.
This research helped Yearn in answering the question – How we can better address the tragic cycle of orphans in Russia once they leave the orphanages unequipped for life?
The objective for this research was to make baby steps towards better understanding that issue.
One of the best solutions is prevention, and this research into the adaptation of orphans into society helped expose what we can do in the here and now, to help the then and there.