Transforming the lives of disadvantaged children and young people in Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.
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Seeking Mum (Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukraine)
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In Ukraine, it is estimated that there are over 60,000 children living in state institutions. Unfortunately with continuing political and economical downturn the number continuously increases. Thousands of young lives are being wasted inside the state care system - a legacy of Soviet times.
The majority of orphans move out totally unprepared with little chance for success. According to extensive research, only 10-15% of the children brought up in "warehouse" type children's homes can fully integrate into mainstream life by finding a job, starting a family and having their own children. Of the remainder one third of them become involved in crime, one third becomes homeless, 40% alcoholics and drug abusers, with 10% committing suicide during the first year of independent life.
Fostering, as an alternative to institutional care, presents a unique opportunity for thousand of orphans to be brought up in a family environment. This significantly increases their chances of achieving something in their lives.
In spite of sufficient financial support provided by the authorities to enable fostering, the majority of the population are unaware of the scheme. Even for social services fostering is very new. They lack experience and knowledge to deal with families. There is little or no promotion of fostering, insufficient training and limited ongoing support at all.
Seeking Mum promotes the fostering of children to the Christian community, recruiting Christian parents who usually have a child of their own and then provides skills based training and on-going support for them once a child comes to stay. Seeking Mum achieves this by working with local churches and the official authorities which currently lack the skills, resources and developmental strategies that can provide a real and viable alternative to the institutionalization of orphaned children.
For a profile on the country we suggest the BBC website on Ukraine
Current Services
Seeking Mum is the first fostering scheme of its type in the region and we hope that it will quickly become a model that can be adopted in other parts of Ukraine.
The project concentrates its efforts on:
Future Plans
In these early days it is necessary to create a trustworthy presence in the region and to become known to the
many church leaders.
Once the network is established a training programme will be developed. In addition, as funds accrue we will
be able to financially support new foster families through purchase of furniture, clothes and children's books
and games.
Seeking Mum is ChildAid’s most recent project partner (established in 2008), and arises from our many years of working in this city.
This project is not yet formally constituted and is operated very much on the basis of a passion for helping orphans.
Project Co-coordinator: Alena Panikarevich
Phone: +380 67 93 44 371
