More than 30 Hero Mothers from the Vitebsk region will be honored at a reception in the regional executive committee

The main event of Mother's Week in the region will be this solemn ceremony at the regional executive committee on October 14, which will be attended by large and foster mothers – recipients of special awards and prizes for 2015. Of these, 6 residents of the region will receive the Order of Mother, as reported by the Committee for Labor, Employment and Social Protection of the regional executive committee.

In general, 648 women in the region have been awarded this high honor, including 27 in 2015. Also, 25 women will receive the award named after Z. Tusnolobova-Marchenko, established in the region. Since 1987, 397 residents of Prividinya have become its recipients.

On the same day, each district will organize congratulations for all mothers, including large families, mothers of foster and guardianship families, family-type orphanages, and women raising children with disabilities. For example, at the cultural and historical complex "Golden Ring of Vitebsk "Dvina", the Belarusian Society of Disabled Persons will hold a charity leisure evening. A festive meeting and concert for large families – employees of cultural institutions – will take place in the exhibition hall of the regional center for folk art methods. Here, the solemn program will be diversified by the opening of two exhibitions at once: artifacts from the folk historical reconstruction clubs "Naglfara" and "Vargentorn", and works by young artists of the region in artistic painting, block printing, and paper cutting.

Houses and Centers of Culture will host thematic concerts, festivals, and family leisure evenings, and district parent meetings. Libraries will host literary "gatherings", and social, educational, and healthcare institutions will host open space events for schools for future and young parents, and round tables, including those with the participation of family psychologists. Cultural workers of the Sharkovshchyna district have approached the holiday concept originally – they have prepared a show program "Come on, Grandmothers!".

Maternity hospitals and hospital departments will also host celebrations for patients who gave birth on Mother's Day. In Vitebsk, the city's obstetrics and gynecology polyclinic will invite pregnant women and young mothers and fathers to a festive program with contests and gifts at the women's consultation center No. 3.

As added by the committee, as of October 1, there are 7600 large families residing in the Vitebsk region. Thanks to an effective system of economic support measures for families raising children, high birth rates have been achieved over the past 20 years. In the first half of 2015 alone, 6317 babies were born in the region.

Ekaterina Knyazeva, BELTA.