By Nadezhda Chibis | Project Manager
"I love spending time with Anna,” said Nastya, an 18-year-old Russian teen mother. “She tells me her stories of personal success, she gives advice. I love listening to her."
Anna is Nastya’s mentor, a successful businesswoman who was invited to a Kidsave event by another Kidsave mentor. Anna and Nastya met in November of 2016 after Nastya had moved to the Malenkaya Mama Crisis Center in with her 5-month old daughter Miroslava, leaving a troubled family situation. The Malenkaya Mama Crisis Center is the home of Kidsave’s mentoring program for teen mothers who need the help, guidance and steady friendship of a loving, mature mentor.
Over the next four months Anna and Nastya became friends, going for walks, visiting museums, seeing movies, exhibitions and skating. Anna listened to Nastya, and shared details about her own struggles and triumphs and how she has dealt with them. Anna shared the kind of advice Nastya would get from a loving supportive home life -- if she had one.
Kidsave finds mentors to help girls like Nastya learn how to take charge of their lives, raise their children, find and keep a job, and function successfully. Nastya is on the road to self-reliance, learning to break the cycle of despair that can engulf young women who have to go it alone.
This important work came to the attention of local media last month, when Moscow Channel 24 came to the Malenkaya Mama Crisis Center to report on the girls and their mentors. The girls told the correspondent about Kidsave’s Malenkaya Mama program, and how it had helped them find caring adults who support their progress. A week later Kidsave mentor Elena invited the film crew to her home to continue the conversation while making soup. It was a “family affair, as the teen mothers talked about their friendship, and their mentors’ support. Elena’s sons Sergei and Paul warmly welcomed Vika, another young monther from the Malenkaya Mama Crisis Center, and they all had fun celebrating Vika’s19th birthday.
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