Events

Portraits of Children

Some of the Friends of Maria Relief Fund

Many years ago, when creating the Maria Relief Fund, a picture gallery was visualized - a wall covered with portraits of the Friends, and of the Children.

Strangely enough, in due course the vision materialised. Through concentration in real time, an artist's sketch contacts the sitter more intimately, than a photo.

The children in this gallery are your own, reflectively - yours and ours. They may grow up to be the Friends also, of Maria Relief Fund. In the shifting terrain of our world today, any of them could suddenly experience severe loss and hardship.

The portraits are selected from Jane Adams's work over the years.

African girl

african girl 2.jpg

Anat

Read more: Portraits of Children

CHRISTMAS MESSAGES 2014

MARIA RELIEF FUND

WISHES YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS

AND PEACE, BLESSINGS AND PROSPERITY IN 2014

My Dear Friends,

I hope you and your family are keeping well.

I take the opportunity to talk to you at this important time. I would like to share with you how I feel. I have in the depth of my heart a combination of feelings nowadays. There is sadness for the childrens' circumstances in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Ukraine and unfortunately in many other countries; there is happiness, because there are people, who devote their lives to bringing positive change for them.

In almost every case the problem is political and so ultimately must be the solution. My dilemma is: should I devote my time and energy to charity work, or to political activity? I cannot walk by on the other-side and leave the children to suffer. As we used to say in Iran, I have a tear in one eye and in the other a smile.

As you know, for more than seven years we have been helping hundreds of distressed children and their families in Ukraine, creating trust and a safe environment: each child receives £150 a year. During this period, we recruited a growing number of local volunteers and established two community centres.

We consider education as essential for the community to achieve self sufficiency and future independence. The excellent results inspire us to continue our mission, which we cannot do without you.

I include some photos for you.

Wishing you a Happy Chrismas and New Year 2015

Hamid

We organised a bus to take our children for two days summer holiday this year

A Recent Letter from Nastya ...

Dear Hamid,

How are you doing? I hope you and your family are fine. I want to tell you about our children.

We had our usual English lesson three hours ago. We did a lot of different fun things. There are about 20 children in our class. I am very happy because every Friday more and more new children come to our lessons. I want to show you some pictures.

God bless you.

Nastya

Christmas Message 2013

Dear friends,

I would like to extend my warmest Christmas greetings to you all, and to express my gratitude to everyone who has contributed to our various projects. These bring fresh hope and inspiration to children, families and individuals who find themselves in difficult circumstances not of their own choosing, and it is important to all of them to know that people care about them.