One of the many charity things the Almaty International Women’s Club does is visiting an orphanage once a month. The orphanage is 1.5 hours drive from Almaty and for kids between 0 and 6 years old. When they reach the age of six they will go to another orphanage, near a town where the kids can go to a local school. Nazarbayev, the Kazakhstan President, has said that the government will take care of all orphans, meaning there will be enough orphanages and money for them to stay, be fed, clothed and go to school.

We went with a group of 10 men and women to the orphanage. As soon as we opened the door of the room, with about15 kids between the age of 2 and 4, the kids literally jumped on us. Apparently they are looking so much forward to the attention they get! They are taken care off, have food and shelter, but they lack in personal attention and body contact, just a hug and a kiss, things our kids get every day, these kids hardly ever get.

So we played with them and handed out juice boxes, an apple and cookies before we went to the other room with the 5 and 6 years old kids and did the same.

It was a good experience and I will definitely go more often.