Russian Charities Offers Families The Chance To Rent A Granny
A Russian charity has set up a new service to help struggling families with childcare and provide a better quality of life for pensioners in the country by offering elderly grannies to rent for up to an hour. Advertised as “borrow a babushka“, the scheme has been running in Moscow since August and already has 35 volunteers signed up.
The charity-run service allows any family with small children to borrow a pensioner multiple times a week at no cost. Parents simply have to register the fact that they are taking part with the local social services and then they are free to get an elderly woman who has volunteered to come and look after their children.
Several people who have borrowed a granny already have praised the scheme for giving them some extra time to carry out chores and tasks, while officials believe the pensioners taking part also get something out of the arrangement. “For an elderly person, it gives an opportunity to fulfill oneself, to pass on their life experience,” says Olga Belova, head of a local social services agency.
