Orphan camp spurs trip to other side of world

Marton Child-Care Centre staffer Rachael Lovelock with 4-year-olds Fonotelle Samasoni (left), Louise Guiren, Joshua Dalley and Sean Adrian.

Childcare worker Rachael Lovelock is relieved to be home in New Zealand and especially home on the farm in Marton.

Two months ago she was one of a special group of 13 Kiwis who flew to Russia to help run a summer camp for orphans.

She was a volunteer with Orphans Aid International (OAI), a New Zealand charity she had always donated to.

"I always go online a lot to see what they're doing. They have orphanages in Romania and Russia."

When Ms Lovelock saw the call for volunteers to a summer camp being held in Kostroma, a city of about 250,000 people on the junction of the Volga and Kostroma rivers, she just knew she needed to go.

The camp was about 400km inland in a forest and though the trip was arduous with hours of flying then hours squashed in a train, she said for her first experience of travel outside New Zealand it was pretty amazing. "And I was a bit scared of flying too. It was such a long way."

She loved working at the camp but had thought she'd be working with little children. Instead she was working with young teenage orphans.

"Well, some were orphans and others came from the most horrific backgrounds you can ever imagine."

From Russia the group travelled to Romania to spend time in the OIA orphanage Casa Kiwi.

Working with children is her chosen vocation. There was nothing she would rather do, she said. Her long-term plans are to save and return to Russia, to stay in one place and not to travel such huge distances in such a short time.