Changes

And here, we think the winter is a slow and sleepy time, when in actual fact, life is racing along, bring all kinds of twists and turns and changes!

A spurt of cold weather in Odessa (yes, even cold by Canadian standards!) has caused the closure of two of the orphanages in which WHU staff work. At the moment, the orphanages have closed for one week. Our staff are hoping to get back to their regular schedule and time with the kids by next week! Please continue to think of them as they navigate Ukraine's wintry roads.

The foster care pilot has seen a number of changes.Towards the end of December, two more of our girls, sisters, decided to leave their foster home. This time, however, the departure was bitter-sweet. On the one hand, our team and the foster parents were sad to have the girls leave. On the other hand, these sisters will be living as a family with their older sister, who was not apart of the foster care pilot and is currently attending university in Odessa. World Hope Ukraine was glad that they were able to help the sisters obtain the necessary document, so that they are able to receive government financial support, and enroll them in college. The foster parents are keeping in touch and making sure the girls are managing. 

On a lighter note, three more young women were able to enter the pilot and be placed in homes in the last month. Three girls from Hope House, Yana, Tanya and Tanya, were placed in two foster homes. The placement of these girls in foster homes is two fold: one, the girls are living with families, feeling the love, support, and consistency of a family unit, and two, their placement in foster homes has opened up beds in Hope House. Sergiy has already mentioned that orphanages have been contacting him, requesting that they take new girls at the end of this school year! It looks as though Hope House will be full again before too long!

Finally, we can welcome a new set of foster parents to the team, Danik and Sveta! Dina spent long hours preparing them to welcome Yana into their home. 

And so, our project has once again hit some bumps in this road. Nonetheless, onward we go, doing and hoping the best for these girls!

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!

A Study

We are currently doing a study comparing girls who have transitioned directly from the orphanages to independent living and girls who have lived in Hope House, a transition home for you women run by World Hope Ukraine and World Hope Canada.

So far, we have gathered information on girls who have left Hope House and transitioned to independent living in the last 3 years. Currently, we are gathering information on young women who went directly from the orphanage to independent living. We are hoping for a sample group of 10-20 girls.

Yulia and Veronika outside their dorm in Odessa

Today, I met with two girls who graduated from their respective orphanages in June and are currently living in a students dorm in Odessa. We conducted a short interview with the girls, asking them about their living conditions, education, income, and personal relationships. I had heard from the girls at Hope House how poor the student dorms were and this interview confirmed this information with facts. 

Both these girls have the status of orphan, which means they draw on a government stipend. However, though  their stipend is supposed to be 2,200 grivnas every month (about $300 a month) on which to subsist, in reality they have only received 1,100 grivnas for two months (about $140 for two months) on which to subsist. The cost of things in Ukraine is similar to prices in Canada. Soviet prices are certainly a thing of the past. 

The girls mentioned they eat no breakfast, have a plain bun and coffee for lunch, and soup or oatmeal for supper. They eat meat maybe once a week and said they never buy fruit because it is too expensive.  One of the girls is suffering from stomach problems from a poor diet. 

Finally, we asked about the dorm. One of the girls said they had one toilet for 40 students and no shower. If she wanted to shower, she went to her friends dorm, where one shower and one toilet was shared with 25 students. They described the kitchen, which had broken ovens and rats.

The girls excited at the options of what they could eat from our Foster Care Coordinator, Dina

Happily, we were able to provide some food and a treat to the girls, but this felt vastly inadequate... 

What this study has told me so far is how many of these students need assistance. Even if we obtain government support and stipends for these girls, life is still difficult. They may not receive the full sum of their stipend. These girls typically have no family to turn to and their orphanages are poorly equipped to provide any help once the girls leave the orphanage.Some are not even provided with enough underwear or bedding to start them off in the dorm. They have nothing and receive little. And worse, they have no one to turn to for help.

We are still hoping the government will support our girls in foster care. This way, these girls would be able to live with a family, have regular meals and stable living conditions. In addition, they would also have adults to care about them and advocate for them. Our pilot is only able to place 6 girls in foster homes. However, we are currently starting a rigorous government relations campaign in order to influence the government to make good on laws they already have. Laws for a foster system exist here, but the government is so far not adhering to them. 

I had thought that once the project was implemented, it would be smooth sailing. As it turns out, we have entered into a vital period and important work lies ahead of us!

Viktoria and Yulia enjoying a meal