Jessica Rothman, whose great gift is an ability to reach out to people on a friendly basis, says her mission is to draw the Russian business community into charity. To set an example, Western organization like the American investment bank, Brunswick UBS Warburg. As a sponsor of Love´s Bridge, Warburg allocates sums from its annual charities budget, donates its out-of-date computers and organizes an annual ball in its aid. "They [the Russians] are just learning about charity because it´s not something that´s been part of the Russian culture," says Rothman, "so it´s something we´re trying to teach Russians that it´s just a part of human services to give a little bit of what you have to those who don´t have."Rothman says she came to Russia in 1995 from London, where she was studying, specifically because "I wanted to work with children. It´s in my blood," she said. She admits Russia was not her preference, having initially tried to persuade her best friend to go with her to work with charities somewhere in Africa since part of her childhood, when it was not in Sweden or India, was spent in South Africa, which she considers one of God´s greatest places on earth. But her friend won the argument and, once in Russia, they met up with a few other friends and started up Love´s Bridge. "We thought that since a bridge is something that connects two people - the need and the resource - we would be that bridge."Having had to start from scratch with a team of 10 volunteers, the achievements today are impressive. Love´s Bridge is now a charity to be reckoned with. Providing assistance to over 7,000 orphans, it is based in Moscow and has a branch in Perm. Thanks to support principally from Nestle Food and a team of volunteers, it organizes help for children living on the streets by seeking them out, feeding them, gaining their confidence and inviting them to one of the two daycare centers. The initial aim is to help homeless children "lead productive lives, become self-reliant and if possible return to their homes." One of the biggest problems the voluntary workers have to combat is the children´s addiction to toxic substances. To help tackle it, Love´s Bridge wants to buy a "rehabilitation cottage" in the countryside outside Perm, which the children themselves would help to run. Love´s Bridge regards their own experiences in the field as a blueprint for future action, enabling them to open similar centers elsewhere in the country. "We´re hoping to build Love´s Bridge into a bigger bridge," said Rothman. "Sounds kinda cheesy, doesn´t it? But actually, starting out from very, very small, we´ve really, really grown."The Moscow office works to ensure that sponsors and funding are found and that what the charity receives, reaches its destinations on a "hands to hands" basis. "There are an estimated 600,000 orphaned children in Russia and their need is very great," Rothman said. "They don´t see much future after graduating from an orphanage because there isn´t much for them to do. Some standards at the orphanages are quite low, either physically or in education [in the sense that] there´s not much to assimilate the children or to encourage their development. That´s a need we try to fill." She went on: "The thing is, working in Russia you can only do so much at a time. We work with one orphanage until we can bring the physical standard up to quite a nice level, so we see quite a lot of progress if we work in small quantities.Since Rothman is Swedish, it made sense for her to direct her energies towards persuading companies in Sweden to donate clothing and shoes. Love´s Bridge brought in three containers in the last year and 21 children´s institutions benefited. In 2002 they plan to bring in three 40-ft. containers of humanitarian aid. For a non-profit organization, bringing goods across Russia´s borders is an almost formidable task when it comes to dealing with formalities since it involves "months of spending countless hours of packing, sorting, finding funding, delivering, driving, dealing with customs and doing the paper work."The original 10 volunteers "have now dwindled down because not many volunteers can keep working for life," said Rothman. "Right now, there are three of us in Moscow and we have a staff of 10 in Perm who have been working there for five years." Nevertheless, "things are looking up. We´re setting up Love´s Bridge to where it will be able to pay a full-time staff." Meanwhile, the search for volunteers continues. "We are always looking for new volunteers who are competent and capable of carrying out projects."