Friday, November 4, 2011

Ongoing Partnership

Having launched the pilot three months ago and with increasing interest from the Canadian International Development Agency, another trip was in order. This trip consists of Sheldon, Project LifeStart Odessa's Project Manager, and myself, Andrea, coming to work more with World Hope Ukraine and see for ourselves how things are settling in. The trip was inspired by our CIDA Project Officer, who wanted to come and see the project as well!

Early in the trip we spent a full day introducing our Project Officer, Annie, to not only the foster homes and life skills teachers, but also to Hope House, which was the result of a previous CIDA-funded project. 

Everyone pitching in to get Sunday lunch ready at Hope House. 
On any given Sunday, anywhere from 15-30 people may come for lunch! This Sunday was no exception :)

And a Ukrainian business lunch. Sergiy, the Director of World Hope Ukraine, 
is deep in conversation with Annie and Natalya, officers from CIDA and the Canadian Embassy in Ukraine.
 

And more talking... there was no end to the discussion and questions. 
Sustainability of the project was the issue of the day and the discussion was very useful.

We were also able to spend some time with two of our foster parents (Sergiy and Larissa) and their foster girls (Katya and Olya). We spoke in detail about the placement of the girls and the adjustment process for both the foster parents and the girls. More discussion will certainly follow as we do assessments of the pilots, but so far the feedback three months into the pilot has been very encouraging. 

We were also able to celebrate the implementation of the project with the whole project team from World Hope Ukraine. We has a lovely evening talking about the project, future goals and steps to be taking, and just generally celebrating a good start! It was a treat for everyone :)
Left to Right: Sheldon (Project Manager), Valya (Life Skills Teacher), Andrea (Project Assistant), Kostya (Life Skills Coordinator), Lina (Hope House Mom), Alyona (Life Skills Teacher), Dina (Foster Care Coordinator), Sergiy (WHU Director)

And so it has been a good week, busy and productive. Sheldon is on his way back to Canada with an armful of new information to report to CIDA, whereas I will be here in Ukraine another two weeks working with the World Hope Ukraine team and seeing the pilots in action!

1 comment:

  1. Great update Andrea! It is so exciting to see things rolling out so well!

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