Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva’s foundation builds new Mercy Home.

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva and Timur Tillyaev have opened the premises of a new orphanage in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. The new Mercy Home was built with the financial support of Karimova-Tillyaeva’s charity “You are not alone” to provide children left without parental care with good standards of living and better opportunities for their development and education, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva’s official website reported on 5 July. The newly built orphanage will be home to 198 children, aged between 3 and 16, who previously lived in two orphanages in Tashkent.

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, the younger daughter of the Uzbek president Islam Karimov heads two charitable organizations in Uzbekistan, which help orphaned children and children with special needs.

The newly built Tashkent orphanage was provided with advanced facilities needed for children’s overall development and education. “Specialists have developed a programme to create an environment conducive to the development of children’s intellectual and creative abilities, as well as to improve the efficiency of the overall learning process,” the website reported.

Karimova-Tillyaeva’s charity is well known for its work in the area of improving living conditions in orphanages across Uzbekistan, which includes renovating the premises of existing orphanages, as well as providing them with furniture and other facilities needed for children’s development.

“There was a need to completely change the structure of and approach to the construction of mercy homes in order to improve the overall standards of living there, making them close to the home environment, as well as to provide children left without parental care with better opportunities for education. To this end, a team of leading specialists - teachers, psychologists, social workers and medical staff - have been employed to work at the new Mercy Home,” Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva wrote on her Facebook page on 5 July after attending the opening of the new orphanage.

The press release posted on her website said the total territory of the mercy home covering an area of 2.5 hectares comprises administrative premises, a medical unit, three residential buildings, offices for extra curriculum activities and social adaptation, a teaching centre, a conference room, a large library, a sports centre, three swimming pools, a conference hall, a dining room and a summer amphitheatre. 

“Providing children left without parental care with good education is one of the top priority areas of the foundation’s work. The new Mercy Home has employed the best professionals: teachers, psychologists and social workers, whose main objective is to impress upon children that quality education, the pursuit of knowledge and constant self-development - are the foundations of getting good profession and decent standards of living in future,” the press release said.

The premises for extracurricular activities have studios where children will be able to receive vocational training in sewing, hairdressing, pottery, culinary, household activities, IT, photography, fine arts and other areas, which will help them in choosing their future professions. 

“Dear children, I hope we have managed to create favourable conditions for your education, development and creative skills,” Karimova-Tillyaeva said in her Facebook post.

Last September Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva and Timur Tillyaev inaugurated premises of Mercy Home No 10 in the city of Samarkand following its extensive renovation, which was carried out with the backing of “You are not alone” foundation.

“A total of 1,418 children have been raised in the Samarkand Mercy Home since it was founded in 1943, and at present the orphanage is home to 138 children,” the report posted on Lola Karimova’s website said.

Karimova-Tillyaeva’s second charitable organization, the National Centre for the Social Adaptation of Children, provides assistance to children with special needs in the areas of diagnosis, orthopedic and neurological treatment, speech therapy and education.