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Project Manager, with volunteers Misho
and Joseph, constructing a playground.
Many of the city's buildings are still in this shape.
Heating system donated by the HOVAL company, Liechtenstein.
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Project Managers Jim & Claire Brownwood |
Brezovica-Zagreb, Croatia
Family International Volunteer Services
Project Managers:
James and Claire Brownwood
The Brownwood's have been involved with a Christian
mission in Croatia since 1996, which procures and delivers aid to
the local refugee camps, orphanages, hospitals, schools and centers
for underprivileged and handicapped children. FIVS volunteers travel
to the Germanic area of Europe to solicit supplies for distribution
in their ministry, these supplies including clothing, school supplies,
computer equipment and food. FIVS staff also teach partially handicapped
youth and undertake various community development projects, in addition
to receiving prosthetic limbs that are distributed in neighboring
Bosnia and Herzegovina where land mines continue to take their destructive
and debilitating toll. Wherever they go, the FIVS team also promotes
the Christian message through songs, skits and puppet shows. |
Beauty found in the ashes of war
To help you more fully appreciate the needs that exist here,
you have to see the physical conditions that still exist from the war.
And then imagine the psychological and spiritual scars.
The ruins of what used to be a normal neighborhood
in Vukovar.
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Many of the city's buildings are still in this shape. |
The former water tower of Vukovar. |
Playground for children of war-torn
city
We completed our project of building a playground for the
Vukovar area. This city was one of the most devastated during the war
and even though in the process of rebuilding, it will undoubtedly never
be the same again. Additionally, there is still a lot of hatred and animosity
underneath the surface among the peoples, requiring needed inner change
to truly begin the rebuilding and healing process. Only with God in the
equation, can the future hold something other than continued division,
pain and suffering.
Project Manager James, with volunteers Misho
and Joseph beginning work on playground. |
Progress of construction of the equipment,
in front of apartment buildings still showing the scars of war. |
Misho (left) still busy at work, while local
children announce that play has begun! |
Joseph and Sonia (bottom right), playground
designers and organizers, happy to offer hope to the children of
Vukovar, Croatia. |
Completed playground, for varied age groups,
including 9-meter slide and concrete tunnels (at extreme right). |
Breza Orphanage
In coordination with a good friend, who
used to work in the Croatian Governmental Social System, we at FIVS now
head Project Breza, the first private orphanage in Croatia. We help train
partially handicapped youth (ages 18~22), who are coming out of the governmental
social care system, in home life skills and vocational training.
Front view of BREZA orphanage properties. |
(L-to-R) - Students Andrijana, Lizzy, Ivana, with the English Director
for the center (right). |
(L-to-R) - Students Ricardo, Iva, Andrijana, and Tony enjoying a light
moment with our children. |
We also procure needed
items for the orphanage, including clothing, shoes, and household
items. |
(LtoR) Klara, Andrew, and Lizzy Brownwood, along
with Suzana’s daughter Sara, helping to unload van as we deliver
donated items to BREZA orphanage. |
(LtoR) James, Andrew, and Lizzy Brownwood, along
with Suzana’s daughters, Klara, Sara and Suzana Vargovic, director
or orphanage BREZA, unloading van and delivering donated items to
BREZA orphanage. |
To replace the small wood-burning
stove that previously was the sole heating element of the whole
building, we procured a new heating system, so now the building
is no longer cold in winter. |
Heating system donated by the HOVAL company, Liechtenstein. |
In front of newly-installed heating system (James - rear right) |
BREZA is a Christian based undertaking so we share the Gospel plan of
salvation with the young people who live at the orphanage, and assist
them in their Christian growth.
Excerpt from Family Care Foundation
Newsletter Volume 3 -- No.4
Before Christmas, we arranged the donation of school materials
to two needy schools, one of which is especially desperate for help, having
recently received a number of Bosnian and Croatian refugees who were returned
from the European countries to which they had fled. At a school for the
hearing impaired, we gave out school materials, as well as Christmas packages
to 200 children housed there.
Christmas show in Zagreb for over 1,100
refugee children.
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Christmas performance, then Christmas gifts
and refreshments for all.
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A letter of thanks from Klasje Orphanage in
Osijek for supplies donated to them by Family International Volunteer
Services.
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