Street Kids and Odessa

It has been a very busy couple of days. Now we have some very tired videographers on our hands, but hopefully a tonne of footage as well :)

We spend most of Friday walking around parts of Odessa where street kids are known to spend time. Our guide, Kostya, would talk with whatever kids we found, but also ask others on the street, such as adult beggers, where the kids were. As I've mentioned before, there are municiple elections coming up and the government has "cleaned" the streets of the street kids. I hadn't realised how thoroughly they had done this, though! We were only able to locate 5 kids: 2 boys that already knew Kostya, and a group of 3 that were sleeping on some stairs by an abandoned building. Apparently, the government had built a new temporary shelter for these kids about 6km outside of Odessa. Though the kids are able to enter the orphanages through this shelter, most run away with in about 2 weeks, never making it to the orphanage. Even if they do make it to the orphanage, however, many still run away.

Searching for the kids

Kostya asking a professional beggar, a Roma women, if she has seen any street kids recently. She hadn't.

We did find a group of kids who were just chilling out on the street. We're not sure of their situation. Nonetheless, Kostya told them about First Step Centre, where it is and what they do they. The seem interested and took the directions. He also asked them if they would sing a song. He told them that my favourite group was Spleen, a Russian rock band, so they sang me a song. Awesome! :)

Street kids are known to come into MacDonalds to hang out and usually to warm up and grab a bite to eat at night. However, there were none here today.

Young boys will often beg in the markets, whereas teenage boys can find some work loading and unloading trucks and helping the vendors. However, there were none to be found today.

There are some very dilapidated buildings in the area in which street kids have been known to live. However, the government is attempting to do some renovations and spruce up the area, so the kids were turned out.

We did find three kids sleeping on the street. However, even they hadn't seen other street kids in a while.

After wandering the streets, we again hung out at First Step Centre and did some interviews with both the staff and the kids. These kids come from all over the place and from all kinds of situations. When interviewing Tatiyana, the director of First Step Centre, we heard some very sad stories, as well as some happy ones. I was blown away at how much patience the workers at First Step Centre must have to have in order to work there. To see these kids come back day after day and patiently wait until they are willing to help themselves, then, and only then, can the workers step in and start helping them. Until that point, it's just survival for these kids and First Step Centre helps them survive: food, cloths, a bit of shelter from the cold for a few hours, etc.

This boy was kicked out of his sisters house because he is drunk all the time. He now lives in a broken down Lada (old car) near her apartment. He was also fired from his job as a parking guard for being drunk. He has been living in the car for 4 months already, but is still drunk. Kostya is trying to encourage him to stop drinking so that he can move back in with his sister. 

One of the boys who comes to First Step Centre

Tatiyana, the director of First Step Centre, chatting with a boy who lives on the street

Grabbing a bite to eat. We were told the kids were able to get some food on the street, but First Step Centre provides them with a balanced meal, a healthy meal: a hearty soup with bread and a main course with meat

Part of the problem is how easily these kids can access cigarettes and alcohol. The fridge is full of beer and usually people don't care who they are selling the aclohol to, so long as they are selling it. A bottle of beer is around 20 cents (often cheaper than water!), where as cigarettes can be as low as about 8 cents.

Saturday was a more light hearted day. We wanted to get some video footage of the city centre, so set out with a wonderful translator, Lena, who lived in Hope House, but is now living independently. Odessa is certainly a beautiful city with a remarkable history. However, I was struck by the contrast between kept and unkept, good homes and bad homes, the rich and the poor.

Here our videographers and our translator are posing with the famous cow. The cow is famous because everyone takes photos with it. Everyone takes photos with it, so told our translator, because it is free :)

Here is the Opera House. It is the second largest and most beautiful Opera House in Europe, if not the world, next only to Italy's, so I'm told. 

And the famous Potemkin Steps. It is tradition to count as you walk up, which we did. I lost count and Adam counted, though incorrectly. Lena provided us with the correct number: 193 steps :)

And a famous building call the wall building. It looks like this is all there is, merely a facade. However, is it an optical illusion and, in fact, a full and operational building :)

 We also interviewed some of the girls from Hope House in the evenings. As I mentioned earlier, some of the girls are very open about their backgrounds, whereas some are very closed. It was great to have a few open up about their histories, families, experiences, hopes and dreams. What struck me about this was than none of the girls were able to completely tell about their families. Each one was close to tears and would ask me to go on to a different question. Despite finding a good living situation, one better than with the families, most likely, there is still trauma in their lives that they must deal with. The house mom, Lina, when she told them about the interviews, said how necessary it is to talk about the past. She described it that, if the girls kept it bottled up inside them, then eventually it would explode within them. She said to let it out slowly and talk about the experiences so that they don't cause damage down the road.

And so, the work here continues. We are still hunting to find more and better ways to help these kids deal with their trauma and lead good, healthy, and normal adult lives.

Child Care and Street Kids

Today we had our first full day of shooting footage for the LifeStart Odessa Project! First, we headed off to hear Sergei, the Executive Director of World Hope Ukraine, speak at a seminar to encourage people who work in child care. 

Sergei telling a joke during his speech at the seminar

Proof that our videographers are working hard

From the seminar, we headed to the First Step Centre (Клуб Первыи Шаг), a drop in centre for street kids. Municipal elections are under way at the moment here in Odessa, so the police have very recently "cleaned" the streets of street kids. That is, the police had combed the city, picking up as many street kids as they could, and brought them to a temporary shelter (Приют). As a result, there were not many kids hanging about the shelter. Nonetheless, we were able to meet and speak with a few kids. I hung out at the shelter, whilst Matt and Adam had the opportunity to see an apartment where two boys live with their alcoholic mother, as well as where kids sleep on the street. 

Some of the stories are quite brutal to hear. One boy I had a conversation with a boy (in my very broken Russian and his very slurred speech) who was quite obviously high. I asked one of the women at the shelter what he might be high on. She said it was most likely glue that he was sniffing, but he was a drug addict and would take whatever drugs he could get. 

Here is the cook of First Step Centre. We had lunch at the centre, which was delicious! No wonder these kids stop in! 

We also met a boy, Andre, who, through the shelter, turned his life around. We were able to interview him and hear his story. He was very open about talking, though also quite shy. He was living on the streets and was a drug addict. He would steal to feed his drug habit, but also to provide for himself. Somehow, he came to First Step Centre. For a time, he just came for what provisions they offered: a shower, food, clean clothes. But, after a time and through the relationships he made there, Andre decided to clean up and smarten up. He is now going through technical school, off drugs, receiving a government stipend, and living in the students dorm. He comes back to First Step Centre to maintain the relationships he made there and to constantly say thank you to them for helping him. I asked him what he wanted for the future. His answer was quite simple: he wanted a normal and good life. I think this is an achievable goal! :) 

Two girls who come to First Step Centre with Kostya, who works at the shelter and is also our LifeStart Project Coordinator.

We will be returning to First Step Centre tomorrow to interview the staff and hopefully a number of the kids. The more we learn about the needs of these kids, the better. Meeting and chatting with these kids of the street stood in start contrast to chatting with the energy and openness of the girls in Hope House, a few of whom had lived on the streets and most of whom have only lived in Hope House since June. The kids in the shelter were distant, reserved, and they laughed and played very little. We were also told by one of the workers at First Step Centre that these kids will give false names and they may only learn their real names after months, if ever. 

 A few kids who stopped in and grabbed a bit at First Step Centre

Yesterday, we also received some wonderful news here at Hope House. There is a girl in the community here, Kristina, (a friend of Luba, one of the girls in Hope House) who needed a bit of support. She was living off 200 grivnas (Ukrainian currency ~$30 CDN) a month, which was the stipend she was receiving from her college. However, from this 200 grivnas, she needed to pay 150gr to stay in the students dorm of this college, leaving here only 50gr to live on for the month! There are a number of problems with this situation. One, the student dorms was terrible. Everything is dirty, more than 20 students are sharing one kitchen with one stove, and there was no adult supervision over the students. Second, 50 grivnas is no where near enough to live off. Kristina, who is training to be a cook, would only be able to eat on Wednesdays at her practicum and would come stay at Hope House on the weekends and eat here. She was only able to eat 3 out of the 7 days each week! Though she and all the girls here wanted her to come live in Hope House, the house was at capacity and there was no more space for another girl. However, due to a change in the wind, Kristina was able to come live at Hope House and become a part of this wacky family. She has quickly adjusted to the routine of the house. The goal of the LifeStart Project is to encourage family-based care for at-risk youth. I think Kristina is excellent proof of the benefits of family-style and seeing how a family will come together to care for and support each other :)

And here is one of the Hope House girls, Lena, being silly after supper whilst Adam tries to repair the very out of tune guitar. These girls have so much energy and usually are full of laughter :)