Last Friday we celebrated the opening of our Youth Centre. In fact it was a re-opening as we have been running the centre for about a year, but have recently moved it to our own property which had perviously housed the boys transition home. Over the last weeks we have been working with some of the young people to paint, repair and generally renovate and it was great to be able to formally open the new centre!
The youth centre is one of the ways that we meet with young people who have been brought up in government institutions such as orphanages and children's centres. Another is that we have linked each young person that has been in touch with a member of staff. Last week one of the young people contacted her 'case worker' and said that she had been thrown out of her home and was now living on the streets; please could we help? It turns out that after she had left her orphanage in the summer she had gone to work in a holiday area and had somehow come across her mother. Initially things had gone well and she had moved in with her mother, but after some time the mother became angry and threw her out. Fortunately we were able to find her a place to stay at a children's centre and will continue to walk with her over the next weeks as she tries to make a fresh start… again.
In other news… Felix and Rosie are on half term and having a well earned rest after a busy few weeks at school. They have both recently had orthodontic treatment, which so far has gone very well and Felix will be getting a full set of braces over the holiday (lucky chap!) And we have just really enjoyed a five day visit from some friends and on their last day (yesterday) we had an hour of snow - the first of the year. It seems that autumn is about to end...!
