About Us
Vermont Yoga Festival Event Organizers
E-mail: jen@vermontyogafestival.com
The Magic House is a non-profit that provides educational opportunities for young adults and children at risk. Our target population is children from orphanages and the foster care system. We provide job training, personal mentoring, educational support, life skills and individualized care for the kids in our program. We have worked with mentally disabled children from Russian orphanages as well as children at risk here in Central Vermont.
WHERE DO PROCEEDS FROM THE VERMONT YOGA FESTIVAL GO?
Every week I write a money order for Ivan Davydov and send it off to Rockland Maine. The money covers his apartment, food and school. After 2 years of doing this I still find it incredible that my peaceful life in Vermont is so connected to a young man from a violent life in far away east in Russia.
Vanya Davydov is a typical twenty-two year old in many ways. He enjoys music, works hard in school and has a Facebook page with lots of photos of friends, adventures and memories. What Facebook doesn't say about Vanya is that he is also the survivor of the Russian system of orphanages; notorious for abusive treatment and inaccurate labeling of children at young ages. The photographs of Vanya's wooden boats he's building in Maine don't show the confusion he must have felt sixteen years ago when he was taken from his family and placed in an orphanage for retarded children for the next ten years.
Vanya's story began in rural Russia near Moscow where his mother and six siblings lived on a small farm. The days were idyllic for young Vanya; cows, chickens, pigs, dogs and relative calm. His mom had a regular job at a large dairy farm, and for five years life seemed peaceful. One day Vanya's mother fell ill with a hig fever. Somehow a fire started in the home the same day and was soon raging out of control. The family managed to escape with their lives and fought the fire without success. Everything was lost.
Without a home, Vanya's family moved around until they finally settled in a typical Soviet-style apartment building with no land for farming. The loss of home and animals was pivotal for Vanya's mother who lost her job, began abusing alcohol and was unable to care well for the children. Vanya has vivid memories of running in the apartment building yard with neighboring children throwing rocks and pipes at each other for what must have been "all day, everyday". He also remembers there was no food and no clothing. Caregivers at Vanya's orphanage remember receiving him severly malnourished, cold, thin and without support of any kind.
For a brief period around age six things improved temporarily as Vanya's mom began working again, and so did he. His daily job at a nearby farm caring for livestock, collecting hay by hand and helping with milking. He proudly brought milk home every day. Soon, things worsened when Vanya's mom was arrested for robbery and jailed for an indeterminate amount of time. Vanya tried to run away; as he feared he would be taken from his older sisters. He was quickly caught and taken to a local orphanage.
In the Russian system of orphanages, children are tested once by a panel of doctors and placed in one of eight levels of orphanage based on performance on intelligence testing and IQ. Vanya performed poorly on the test (as many children who have experienced trauma and separation from family do) and was placed in a Type 8 orphanage; one level above children completely non-functional. He was officially labeled as "retarded" and relinquished to a world with very few chances for education, love or survival in the world after orphanage life.
I've worked and visited Vanya's orphanage many times. It is located in a tiny bucoclic village of rambling rivers and farmland about 3 hours outside of Moscow (the world's most expensive city). The dorm houses 80 children ages 6-18. There are 2 caretakers to supervise children except for the 20 weekly hours when "school" is in session. There, Vanya received a 5th grade education that prepared him for a career of brick laying. He grew to be a quiet, gentle young man who somehow earned the respect of even the toughest bullies in the orphanage. His demeanor was further shaped by a summer at age 11 in the local mental hospital where unruly orphans are routinely sent for "treatment" with pharmaceuticals used in the US to control inmates in violent prisons. The children spend their days in pajamas receiving shock treatments and drug therapy. They are always very well behaved upon their return to the orphanage.
Vanya's story may have ended typically with graduation from his orphanage, a short bricklaying training and frustration at being unemployed, untrained and uneducated. Instead he motivated himself to try an unusual life skills training program offered by the Magic House, our small American non-profit running a pilot program for graduates of Vanya's orphanage.
Vanya struggled at first to get out of bed on time, take a job seriously and care for himself. Basic life skills had never been part of his orphanage training. With mountains of patience our family worked with Vanya for 4 years; teaching him to cook, think, believe in himself, shop, work, clean and dream. He was accepted at a Wilderness Skills Program in Washington State and flew off alone last year to begin his studies. His English flourished as did his social skills. After more visa papers; Vanya earned a spot at the Atlantic Challenge boatbuilding School where he is starting his second year. He has come eons from the semi-illiterate orphan I met six years ago... and with the support of friends and community he will continue to grow...
