A little boy in the room he lives and sleeps in, who is given family support in Belarus.

A little boy in the room he lives and sleeps in, who is given family support in Belarus.

I find this photograph poignant as in the detail you can see the buttons on his cardigan are different, which means they have been repaired when there is no money for new ones. To go with this picutre I have a story of a family helped by SOS family support.

Seven years ago Marina and her seven children visited the SOS Social Centre for the first time, and this is what she recalls "the conditions at the center are like from another world".

Forty-three-year-old Marina vividly remembers the last time she was here. "The village is still as beautiful as it was then and the house here is nice and comfortable. Having three to four rooms for our family at the SOS Social Centre is something we don't enjoy back at home."

The list of differences with the situation at home is long. "We have more money here, there's no need to pay for rent and we can spend money on fruits and meat - that's also something we cannot do at home. At home I get tired of only thinking about what I'm going to cook."

"Here we can also check our radiation levels; this is something that we cannot do at home as the authorities tell us the environment in Gomel is o.k. So, if the environment is ok, there's no point to check the people's health."

"At home I'm afraid of letting the children play outside - here it is much more quiet and safe. At home I take medications; here I have had no problems with my health for ten days. Here I can rest."

Eleven-year-old Ivan agrees with his mother, saying that it is better in the SOS Social Centre than at home. "Here everything is better, I like everything. If I were to change anything, I would like to be here in summer instead of now in spring. The village is even prettier."

The boy says that he enjoys life in the village, because here he can eat bananas and meat. "We eat meat only once a month," says Ivan, who has to share a room at home with five other children. "We have two rooms, where nine people live. It's almost impossible to turn around."

Mother Marina adds that the flat - 28 square meters - is on the first floor and this means that the living place is very humid. "My oldest son has asthma because of that; here the conditions are like from another world. There is hope that we will get a bigger apartment, but nobody can tell me when."

"Financially we cannot afford to go on a vacation; to come here is the maximum we can afford and it's simply pure heaven here."

All names have been changed for privacy reasons.

The SOS Social Centre Borovljany has two main target groups: the first group are children who already have cancer or cancer-related illnesses, who get treatments in the neighbouring Children's Cancerous Clinic. The second target group are people who live in the contaminated areas - preferably big families - who stay at the centre for three weeks.