How We Help

We meet orphanage graduates as they enter Zhytomyr trade schools.

We invite them into mentoring relationships, learn about their needs, and introduce them to Jesus’ love. We offer support in the following areas:

Basic Needs

We offer a food and clothing pantry, laundry facilities, and showers. We provide diapers and other basic items for families, supplies for personal hygiene, and help with transportation; we meet other needs as they arise.

Education

We begin with life skills training, then provide tutoring, study help, and English lessons. We offer guidance for a student’s whole educational path, including college applications and some help with tuition.

Vocation

We teach a strong work ethic, and help young adults find work opportunities. Through our Restoration Project, some apprentice in the home renovation trade. We help others earn certificates in marketable skills.

Medical Advocacy

We teach youth about health and hygiene, and accompany them to the doctor and dentist. We help orphanage graduates of all ages with advocacy and financial aid in medical crises.

Housing

We advocate extensively with government agencies and landlords to provide housing for our young people. We offer transitional and crisis housing, and we renovate orphanage graduates’ unlivable properties.

Relationships

We help orphanage graduates develop friendships, restore relationships with their remaining family, and pursue healthy dating choices. We provide advice and counseling for married couples.

Parenting

Through Stop the Cycle, we invest in orphan-led families with intensive aid, parenting classes, and mentoring. Shelter Crisis Housing provides high-impact holistic help to orphan moms at risk.

Spiritual Growth

All our staffers are Christians with deep compassion for orphanage graduates. We share the Gospel across our programming, connect orphanage graduates with local churches, and disciple those who follow Jesus.

Leadership

Last Bell’s former orphans are volunteering, serving in church, and helping their younger peers. Two former orphans have joined our staff. They’re changing the paradigm of orphanhood in their culture.

Core Programs

Educational Outreach

Educational Outreach to trade schools is our primary point of connection with recent orphanage graduates coming into the city from all over the region. We offer on-site life skills classes in twelve of the Zhytomyr trade schools attended by orphanage graduates. As we develop one-on-one mentoring relationships, we invite them to special group events and outings. Our youth often spend time at our Day Center in the downtown area, where we also offer legal assistance, help with housing, medical advocacy, counseling, and humanitarian aid.

Stop the Cycle

Our Stop the Cycle program assists orphan-parented families, especially single moms. We offer parenting classes, summer retreats, spiritual mentoring, a childcare co-op, and help with basic needs. There are times when orphan moms need to leave an abusive or unsafe living situation; through Last Bell’s Shelter Crisis Housing facility, a three-story house in the heart of Zhytomyr, we provide safe transitional housing. Our Mobile Unit takes supplies and medical checkups to orphan moms in isolated villages.

The Restoration Project

Many of our youth inherit uninhabitable property. The Restoration Project is an apprenticeship program, training a group of orphanage graduates to restore the apartments and homes of fellow orphans. Last Bell staff provide both construction oversight and mentoring. The young people who participate will become employable and able to participate in restoring their own communities. For beneficiaries, safe housing serves as a springboard for future success and stability.

Seasonal: Summer Camps

Summer camps lay vital groundwork for long-term relationships with local orphanage graduates. They quickly discover that camp isn’t just a nice trip to the sea or the mountains, but an opportunity to develop trust in adults who care about them. We offer camps for several groups including orphan students at trade schools, older orphans we know well, orphans of all ages who want to learn English, and Stop the Cycle, our growing community of orphan-led families. We see the fruit of these trips year-round.