An Irish housewife and a prison manager are using their experience to transform a Russian orphanage from an isolated pile into a place of hope,writes Breda Heffernan

How do children abandoned in a remote Russian orphanage get caught up in a life of crime? All too easily, according to Derek Treacy, a manager with the Irish prison service who is working to stop the revolving door that sees former orphans swap one institution for another.

Almost 80 per cent of orphaned Russian boys will return to institutionalised care within a year or two of leaving the orphanage. As most will end up in prisons it's easy to see why Debbie Deegan, the founder of the To Russia With Love charity, chose Treacy to lead this battle.

"The 3,000 people in Irish prisons all have a release date but in Russia there are 2,000 children heading into prison in Debbie's region alone," says Treacy.

"Historically, the only way for orphans to go once they left the orphanage was for the good-looking girls to go into prostitution and for the boys and those not so good-looking, with no education and no means to support themselves, to go into a life of crime."

However, his experience of Irish prisons is ensuring these children's lives aren't over before they have even begun and, having witnessed the transformation of conditions in prisons here, he knows how best to modernise the decaying Russian facilities.

Treacy and Deegan are responsible for turning a once crumbling, secluded orphanage in western Russia into a flagship home, the pride of the region. He has the technical know-how, garnered from 27 years of prison experience. Deegan, while driven by her heart, is a determined operator who has perfected the art of arm-twisting. Both have demanding workloads; he is now responsible for the running of Ireland's 17 state prisons here; she is a Clontarf housewife whose brood now extends to more than 1,500 children over two continents.

Work pressures meant that at first Treacy was reluctant to travel to Hortolova, the orphanage the Russian authorities had tried to forget by building it in an isolated spot in the Bryansk region of western Russia.

But after some determined canvassing on the part of Deegan, he made his first visit in January 1999. By his own admission, his first glimpse of the orphanage, in the heart of a forest, and the wretched state of the children meant he was "caught hook, line and sinker".

The conditions he encountered, "rundown buildings and demotivated staff", were appalling and were more akin to Irish prisons of 25 years ago than a home for children.

"The boys' accommodation block reminded me of the elephant house in Dublin Zoo. As soon as you went in you were confronted with the strong smell of urine."

All the fire doors were blocked up and there were no fire-safety drills. Quite a number of children in orphanages have been burnt to death because of poor safety measures.

"I found it Dickensian, as the staff and children all lived on-site. It meant that if a child had a bad experience with a member of staff they had to live with that person every day, 365 days a year," he says.

Such conditions did not augur well for the health, physical or emotional, of the children unlucky enough to be there. "Their teeth were welded together with plaque and they would stick to you like glue as soon as they saw you because this was the only human warmth they had ever known. Some of the kids were chain-smokers by the age of nine and were hardened little men and women by the age of 11 or 12."

Life in orphanages and prisons are almost identical, according to Treacy. "The whole system is exactly the same. In real terms, both groups come from socially deprived areas, both are stigmatised by the fact that they have come from an institution. Russians stigmatise orphans like the Irish would prisoners. They are nearly considered sub-human."

Many of the children in Hortolova are not true orphans in the strict sense of the word, but are rather "social orphans", removed from their homes by the state after their parents have lost parental rights. This could be due to neglect, emotional, physical or sexual abuse but often, it is due to alcoholism. There are some 700,000 orphans in 2,500 orphanages across Russia.

Hortolova soon became the dumping ground for the most difficult children, says Deegan, who herself adopted a girl from that orphanage eight years ago. "They were troublesome in terms of Russian standards and were write-offs in their eyes, but we poured TLC on them."

However, Deegan knew the dangers posed by short-term help. "Too many people go in with a good heart, give the kids a few teddy bears and don't look back. I think if you do that it's irresponsible; you have to keep at it and keep at it to make changes. I decided I wasn't there for a quick fix, to paint Minnie Mouse on the walls and leave. I wanted systematic changes brought in." And the changes in Hortolova have been dramatic.

Treacy, who has come through the transformation of Irish prisons and is familiar with the systems that needed to be established, was put to work.

Old ramshackle buildings, such as the medical block, were modernised and maintenance programmes introduced to ensure they remained that way. Hygiene standards in Hortolova improved dramatically as a result. A new boys' accommodation block was built and their lives improved markedly. Whereas previously there had been 75 of them using one toilet and sleeping in one dormitory, the new unit has created a more familial atmosphere, with around 20 boys living in one unit with their own bathroom and TV room. "It's very important as it means they're not living in packs anymore," says Deegan. A new girls' block is also in the planning stages.

The emotional well-being of the children is also being addressed with a Challenger Programme, to help those that are academically gifted, and a Reintegration Programme, to help them settle into life outside the orphanage and avoid falling into a life of crime when they eventually leave. A Life Skills Centre helps to chip away at the institutionalised shell that surrounds the children by teaching them the basics of what we take for granted, such as cooking and handling money.

"The children make simple choices like what they will have for their meal - borscht or vegetable soup," says Treacy. Most importantly of all, he says: "What we have done is give the children back their childhoods."

For more information contact Svetlana or Nicole, tel: 01-8532920, or e-mail: torussiawithlove@iolfree.ie. Website: www.torussiawithlove.ie