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WIZO Impact

Vadim

November 09, 2014

“I hated leaving my family, they had nothing. I understand now that to help them, I need to succeed. That is what I’m going to do.” 

Vadim

For some, the Youth Village is their first taste of a normal life in safe surroundings.

Yaffa, the house-mother at WIZO Hadassim Youth Village recalls meeting Vadim when he first came at the age of 12, especially his “wild hair and sad eyes.” “But,” she says, “nothing prepared me for the shock of our first home visit and seeing the place he had called home.” The tiny one-room apartment, off a back alley in a commercial district, accommodated two parents and five children. Dark and bare of any nutritious food, “It was completely chaotic.”

Vadim had great trouble adjusting to life in WIZO Hadassim. He suffered from overpowering guilt: his constant companion was a suitcase in which he hoarded anything he could find, including food, to bring home to his family. It took a long time before he felt worthy of the life WIZO provided for him at the village. Clean, orderly, loved and safe for the first time, Vadim did not know how to react to it all. His behavior was exactly like that of a refugee, withdrawn, sad, few verbal skills, unable to focus at school or to trust anyone at all.

Now, four years later, Vadim is a different person. With the help of intensive tutoring with his studies, Vadim has many academic accomplishments to his credit in which he takes pride. He no longer hoards, and is very well adjusted.