Friday, January 6, 2012

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a very Happy New Year from all the LifeStart Project staff!

2011 has been a very good year overall for Project LifeStart Odessa, full of many accomplishments! Project materials were completed with the help of teams of excellent volunteers, WHU staff were trained, and the project launched! 

Our life skills teachers are now teaching in three orphanages in the Odessa region. Two were late started due to a chicken pox quarantine! Nonetheless, as soon as the quarantine was lifted, our life skills team was there and ready to go!

Kostya and two of our students showing off the collages made by one of the life skills classes

In August four girls were placed in foster homes, with an additional two being placed in November. One of the girls, Alyona, had decided to leave the project after 3 months in a foster home. This was a very difficult and discouraging moment for the foster parents and project staff. However, despite all convincing, Alyona decided she preferred the freedom of life in student dorms. 

On a positive note, however, it was a pleasure to see the remaining girls in foster care really settle into their settings. I personally was blown away to watch one of our girl, Ira, change from a quiet and withdrawn girl to a laughing, smiling one. My theory is that she was waiting and saving herself for a family. It was encouraging to see her settled and happy.

And now, with the project up and running and the onset of 2012, we have just as much work ahead of us as we have behind us! Our focus is turning to project sustainability! We have funding from the Canadian International Development Agency until spring 2013. And so, the fate of the pilots still hangs in the balance. With changes in the Ukrainian government, we must redouble our effort to boast the benefits of the project! Sergiy, WHU Executive Director, will be working hard to contact local government officials and inform them of the project, provide them with materials, tell of the benefits, and show them the girls whose lives are being affected. 

Sergiy talking with Natalya from the Canadian Embassy in Kyiv over lunch at Hope House.


At the same time, Kostya and the life skills team will be traveling far and wide in the Odessa region to work with ready and willing orphanages. They will talk about a life skills program and provide orphanage directors and teachers with the curriculum and training with the hope that the orphanages themselves will be able to teach the curriculum after the funding from CIDA completes.

Kostya heading to the Director's office at an Odessa City orphanage
The point of these activities is to ensure that these opportunities remain available to at-risk youth in Ukraine. These are indirect actions that directly affect the lives of boys and girls in Odessa. 

And so, we have a long road ahead of us!



And, WHU has a new blog where you can keep us with all the latest activities. Here is the link!

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