A letter from Tom McEnaney, IODP founder.

Let me begin by apologising for not keeping in touch. It was wrong and I promise to be much more up to date with postings in future. As you know we do not employ staff, spending 100% of all donations on children, so the scare resource which is our time is often wrongly prioritiised in the direction of the immediate needs of the children we are hoping to help, when it is only right to also inform our friend base on ammado of what we are getting up to.

The good news, and it is very good news, is that we're getting up to quite a lot, much of it very exciting, if you're into that sort of thing, and I am.

In Belarus, among other things, we finished a new swiming pool in Ocipivichi Centre for children with significant disabilities. When we first arrived in Ocipivichi, which is home to 96 children, at Russian Christmas in January 2008 it was in relatively poor condition.

Since then we have put in new windows, effected physical repairs, added modern industrial machines to the laundary, and generally resourced the existing facilities, including new beds and new craft and physical education materials. 

My favourite project has been the swimming pool, which was completed in May of this year, having been conceived in January 09. Children with significant physical disabilities require specific physical training regimes, to maintain and develop their muscles and motor functions. I don't pretend to be expert in the field but there's the bones of it. When intervention comes late for a child muscles can be in stages of atrophy.

When we arrived in Ocipichi it had a suite of baths each with industrial water massage equipment attached. It looked very impressive but when we asked for the equipment to be turned on we were told they were 40-year-old German machines, which hadn't worked for 10 years.

So we gutted the place and installed a swimming pool, thanks to the combined efforts of Mick O'Brien's Dunshaughlin Crew, Geoff Spencer's expert guidance and Denis Vnuchko's committed coordination. In January we will add state of-the-art water massage equipment. 

Now we're adding an equestrian centre. Much of the groundwork has been completed. Donal McNally, a very well-regarded Dublin architect has designed the centre, which will be on a vacant site, adjacent to the orphanage itself. The regional authority has agreed to pay the cost of the "project" a sort of combined planning permission and quantity survey carried out by a state authority and usually costing one tenth of a building's cost.

Kingspan has kindly agreed to supply the cladding for the centre from its Polish operations. Kingspan, which is based in my home town of Kingscourt, is a very well known brand in Belarus.

We hope to begin contruction in Spring 2010 and to move the first horses in that Summer. Horse riding is a leading-edge practice for children with disabilities around the world. The child not only bonds with the horse, but in doing so exercises a wide range of muscles. When Donal travelled to Belarus to consult with local architects and equitherapist who has been hired to coordinate programmes, he was surprised to learn that the main ring should be rectangular, not round, to make children work more to direct their charges. 

Thanks to your kind support, the regional authorities have agreed to increase the capacity of the centre to 170. That's 80 children would are currently not receiving help who, in future will have access to leading-edge facilities.

Our next time in Ocipivichi will be January when we bring Santa Claus for the third year running.

If you want to support our work in Ocipivichi and the 510 other orphanages we have touched in Belarus and India please press "Donate". Although in time we will need a modest admin budget, at present 100% of donations go driectly to the orphans.

Tom