Tomas was placed in an institutional care center SOS Children‘s Villages at the age of six. The boy had gone through violence, hunger, he had been left alone for weeks. When he was six years old, he could barely tell his name and didn‘t know how to count. At the moments he had been left alone, he would drink, steal and live in places where different people were drinking alcohol every evening. Tomas had never seen a safe home, or felt the love of his mother and he hadn‘t imagined what a happy childhood looks like. The care rights were taken away from his parents because of carelessness and at the moment Tomas lives in SOS Children‘s Village. The boy has a clean and safe home here, the love of his SOS mother. However, the experienced traumas have an impact on his life because he has been diagnosed with a light disability and mental retardation.
After being placed in SOS Children‘s Village, Tomas also had a speech disorder which means that nobody could have understood what he was trying to say or pronounce. The boy needed an intensive assistance of a speech therapist and the support of a loving person. After a year of collaborative efforts of Tomas himself, his SOS mother Regina, speech therapists, teachers and other specialists, Tomas is finally able to express himself and be understood by others. Now he is able to tell and write his name, but he needs an intensive and constant assistance of speech therapists and psychologists because if he would stop seeing his speech therapist, his speech again would be very difficult to understand.
Tomas is only one of overall 29 children, who need an assistance of a speech therapist or education specialist. Your donation would allow to ensure a speech therapist‘s or education specialist's assistance for all these 29 children for 9 months. Children who had traumas from their childhood and an inappropriate care, learn to talk, write and read with the help of a speech assistant. They also become more motivated to learn and to communicate with other children.