Dubai: Creating a suitable environment for the children at Family Village started off with the orphanage itself and the facilities made available to the youngsters it houses.

Tayeb Abdul Rahman Al Rais, Secretary General of the Awqaf and Minors Affairs Foundation (Amaf), which manages Family Village, stressed that the orphanage strives to make children feel like regular members of society rather than keeping them locked up.

Family Village currently houses children between two-and-a-half-years of age and 19. Al Rais describes it as a place that is able to provide a tranquil and serene atmosphere and a tour of the village proves as much.

Out of 16 villas, only five are occupied, with each able to house up to nine children. “The whole village can fit up to 164 children, but the idea is not to fill it up because it’s the role of the society to come forward and join these kids to their family,” Al Rais says.

As part of the administrative building with the management offices, there is also a library, prayer rooms for girls and boys, besides a clinic and a cafeteria. Upstairs, there is a nursery, with little cribs for newborn babies, besides a youth centre.

After the boys pass puberty, Al Rais says, “they will have to move to the youth suites with their ‘fathers’ because based on Sharia they can no longer be together with the girls in the villas, but they can still visit their aunts, mothers and siblings.”

The youth centre contains a huge recreational hall for the boys where they can play tennis table, billiards, or watch television. There is a play station, too. The room also has a view to an outdoor play area with a football field.

The clinic is staffed by two nurses working shifts, Al Rais said. The medical staff are from the Dubai Health Authority.

The well-landscaped property has villas built close to one another to make its occupants feel connected to one another and to the larger community.

Each villa contains separate rooms for the mother and aunt and children, a study room, play room, laundry room and a kitchen with a dining room.