Photo reporting: volunteers visit Zaporozhye regional asylum for children (edited)

With apologies to Irina Kotova and Nataly this is a moving and important report. What I did was to edit just a bit to make it easier for readers. I have become familiar with reading and understanding translated reports from deti.zp.ua and am very happy to read them.

Nataly, if I could use Ukrainian even 25% as well as you use English I would be very proud. And to Irina Kotova, your compassionate heart shows in your report.

I encourage everyone to click on the link above to read the report as written and see the uplifting pictures.

This report demonstrates the vital importance of adopting these children as soon as possible so their enthusiasm will not be killed by living in an institution. Right now they have hope for a better life, but…..

It’s not just Ukrainian institutions – it includes orphanages world wide. They suck the hope out of children and the older the children become in the institution the worse it becomes for them.

There is never enough money, care takers, medical care, teachers, supplies, clothes, decent living space, wholesome food, everything.

Let’s not let them lose hope because they will learn that their future is bleak – high numbers will commit suicide upon leaving the institutions, a majority of the boys will go to prison and a majority of the girls to prostitution.

Let us hope that this incoming “class” can be spared that future.

David

By Irina Kotova, translated by Nataly for deti.zp.ua

“Before New Year's holidays we have decided to visit the Zaporozhye regional shelter for minors and to present them gifts which have sent by people from abroad (kahpo from the USA, Elena from United Arab Emirates, Amy from the USA) and gifts that have also been collected from other people with kind heart.

“There are 64 children in the age of from 3 till 18 years in a shelter at this moment, but the quantity of children constantly varies. Specificity is that children are here about three months, and then their further destiny is solved, it is a boarding school more often.

With approach of New Year's holidays, according to the tutors, updating is expected: parents forget about children because of holidays, or show so much attention that is necessary to call police. Some children simply run from unsuccessful parents in searches of the best life.

“Some of them still believe in the Father of the Frost (Santa Clause in the US) and hopes, they will meet him in the street, and he will be warm hearted and will present a new, safe life.

“Children meet us warmly, all tried to get acquainted, especial kids. They differ from children from boarding schools very much; proceed on contact with pleasure, more often they are the initiators of dialogue.

“It is very easy with them. It amazed me personally that they are very polite. One boy stretched a hand, named the name and added ‘Glad to meet you’.

“However may be their destiny before a shelter, but there is still not that hopelessness in their eyes inherent to the children from boarding schools. They still look into eyes of each adult with children's naivety, as though speaking, ‘look at me, I in fact am the best, I deserve your
attention and love’.

“In some more months they will receive all this from tutors and directors of a boarding school because they treat each child with feeling. We visited all groups, we heard only kind words from tutors and it was not necessary to raise a voice to bridle guys and, the most important, children ‘heard’ them.

“Now all in the life of these children depends on everyone working with them. Olga Nikolaevna Kucher has headed the shelter for about one year, and for this time much is done, and even more planned. But help is necessary to realize all that.”

There is a lot we can do to help.

D

From the Kyiv Post

Business embrace charity despite tax hurdles

By Elisabeth Sewall, Assistant Editor

January 09, 2008 22:07

“The philanthropic practices of Ukraine’s most generous donors are receiving more attention as NGO’s and businesses work together to promote the practice of corporate philanthropy within the nation’s business community.

“Novynar, the Ukrainian-language sister publication of the Kyiv Post, named the top-15 Ukrainian philanthropists of 2007 in its first ever Philanthropist ratings published December 27.

“Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk, son-in-law to former president Leonid Kucnma, was rated as the most generous philanthropist of the year, giving a total of Hr 103.5 million ($20.7 million) to culture and health services charities.

“The list of the top 15 philanthropists included well-known business and entertainment figures as well as politicians, who gave money for a range of charitable causes, including education, assistance to children, cultural preservation, health services and AIDS prevention.

“Others in the top five include Ukraine’s richest man…..”

This is very good news. But, now is not the time to abandon the Ukrainian children with your own charitable gifts to the Volunteer/Authors and others presented here at ukraineorphans.net, or to the charity you now help support.

This link to the interesting story will take you out of ukraineorphans.net so please use your back button to return.

http://www.kyivpost.com/business/general/28108

“Ukrainian President Urges Revival Of Christian Values”

KIEV, Ukraine – Ukraine President Viktor Yushchenko called on Ukrainians to revive Christian.

“Let Christmas bells – messengers of the birth of Christ and Savior – bring to your homes peace and warmth,” he said in his address to the Ukrainian people on the Christmas Eve.

“I believe that the revival of Christian values and deep national traditions will enrich the Ukrainian nation,” he said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said in her address that this holiday symbolizes the revival and hope.

“This very hope for a better future has saved the Ukrainian people for hundreds of years and helped us get off our knees. And we also need this very hope now, when our authorities have finally become democratic and consolidated,” she said.

“God gives us the chance to become a highly moral and independent European nation,” Tymoshenko said.

The oppositional leader and head of the Party of the Regions, Viktor Yanukovich, said “let the birth of Christ renovate our belief and give us new strength to overcome all trials and decently go down the path of life.”

Source: ITAR-TASS

Posted on Kiev UKRAINE Blog by Nicholas @ 4:12 PM January 6, 2007

Very Bad News for Ukraine

Sunday, January 06, 2008

KIEV, Ukraine -- A report issued by Ukraine's state statistics committee showed that the country's annual inflation rate accelerated to 16.6 percent in December, the fastest since 2000, on rising prices of food and fuel, Bloomberg reported.

According to the report, Ukraine's inflation rate surged from 15.2 percent in November, which was the highest in Europe for that month, as food costs increased 23.7 percent in December from a year earlier.

Consumer prices rose 2.1 percent from the previous month.

Consumer prices rose after neighboring Russia doubled the cost of natural gas sold to Ukraine in 2006 and raised it another 37 percent last year.

Ukraine relies on imports, mostly from Russia, for about 70 percent of its energy.

Source: MENA Fn

More on the Communist created Genocide in Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- Maksym Kravets remembers watching hunger kill his father, then his mother. Kravets, who was 14 when famine struck Ukraine in 1932, says he survived by eating a dog. About a third of the 1,000 people in his village, Lozova, perished as Soviet leader Josef Stalin cut off food supplies to force peasants onto collective farms…..