Is it possible to turn time back some half century ago? Definitely, yes. To do this one needs to cross about 200 km to the north from Kiev and find yourself in a small village Komarovka of Chernigivska oblast. There, in the village, the Komarovsky school orphan-asylum is located which we visited for the first time in 2006 when joining charitable weekend organized by Internet project www.detdom.info. We were shocked and as if stabbed by what we saw… grey faces and grey children deprived of love and lack of care, fingers looking form the holed shoes and boots. The majority of children were running outside on the snow in slippers, worn top to three pairs of socks. Could you imagine this in the coldest January when the temperature was – 15 degree of cold? You couldn’t? But it was the reality in which we plunged that time…The most heartbroken impression left on us a boy as if alive from the movie about after war childhood. The same stripped heavy coat from someone else’s shoulder, of downcast brown color and unknown source of shoes. The children who were clad and shod in the same way were many. They all were seating in the class room with their clothes on because of the tremendous cold. The heating system did not work because of pipe was burst and not repaired.

That was five year ago…Now there is constant team of people who during that time regularly visits this boarding school doing their best and trying to solve the most vital and urgent problems of these children to provide them with more or less humane terms of living. But the main aim is to let children know that they are not alone in this world, that there are people who care for their future and their fate, and who can provide guidance and compassion.

Komarovsky school internet was organized in 1960. Annually about 120 – 130 of children ranged from 1 to 9 classes (6 – 14 years old) are raised here. Only 20 per cent of these children are orphans – those who do not have parents. Other children are so-called social orphans. They have parents who totally ignore and forget their children… those parents remind invisible vampires who do not write the official refuse from children striving for money that the state pays to these “parents” for these children. There are lots of cases when children having lived for nine years in this boarding school have never seen their own parents. Those children have even more challenges after graduating from boarding school because they have neither privileges to enter technical schools or institutes nor financial support from the state.

We as volunteers passionately believe we can help children to adjust to life outside and to integrate into adults’ life, to choose their own future through getting education. We wish they are aware there is a place that differs from the only one they know because the living conditions of the boarding school located in remote area do not differ much from the ones which could be experience in prison. According to the research of one charitable foundation 49% of orphans who enter such technical schools do not attend classes and lessons starting from the first days. At list 8% from them do not attend classes because they have already been imprisoned, others just don’t have a wish to attend them. The way how they explain their attitude is an easy one – it was not their choice, the choice was done by the state so let them figure out what to do. But even those who attend classes all the way usually graduate and enter local labor market unskilled – without any knowledge and experience. And that’s when the state hits the final blow towards them– it provides them with alimony that was accrued for all study period – partially the alimony is covered by state and partially by their “parents” deprived lawfully of parents rights. Even if those “parents” paid the minimum amount, in total accrued amount of money is getting rather significant for orphans. Which carrier might be after getting this amount or pile of money? Annually thousands of children leave orphan-asylums in Ukraine and step into adult life as if a rocket launch in cosmos.

Children’s future is clearly shown in the criminal and prosecutor statistics: 40% are imprisoned during the first years of independent life, 40% become homeless, 10% commit suicide. The rest 10% are so-called “relatively successful’, which includes drinkers, streetwalkers and just unemployed. The only their “success” is that they do not disturb the state a lot. The percentage of truly successful is very small. Thus they say only miracle could help graduators from orphan houses to survive and be successful. One of the major reasons is almost in the total inadaptability of orphans to adult life. They do not know how to make tea, cook food, are not familiar with concept of money at all thus are not able to support themselves financially during a month. We know the cases, when the graduators have spent all money provided by state during two or three days buying sweets and cigarettes, and the rest of the month were starving and picking up leavings in dinning rooms.

Taking into consideration large number of children in the Komarovka orphanage we, volunteers and the management of the orphanage, have decided to split into groups and manage each own class to make the cooperation more successful. Thus, for three years by now each class is guided by its own chief/supervisor who communicate with children and solve the current issues related to clothes, shoes, care and health. The children have started to trust us more , share with us their problems, even sometimes ask for advice. In order to help children choose their future profession it is crucial to make friends with them not at times of graduate class but much earlier.

The financial and living support such as clothes or presents is not so important. The most important is to change their mentality and support them. All orphans have the same syndrome: they do not even know how sour crème in stores looks like. Even if you cant say they have excellent living conditions in the orphan but at list they have everything ready. And this common practice experienced by them through all of the years in orphan– practice “ THEY ALL OWE ME” – we all need to overcome. It is a challenging task but it could be performed. Lao Tzu said” Give a Man a Fish, Feed Him For a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, Feed Him For a Lifetime”

To make their recreational activities more interesting and useful we hired instructors to teach children different courses including dancing, class of art, as well as starting from this year the new ones – tourism and cooking class. The cooking class is designed and conducted by the volunteers themselves. Each visit we teach them to cook, afterwards eat it together. And what is interesting about this – the boys are very active during this process and cook with great pleasure. Especially they like cooking biscuits and cakes.

COOKING CLASSES

And now it is time to switch to living conditions of orphanage in Komarovka:

There are two buildings – the new one and the old one. The latter was build in 1960, the dark one but warm. The new one was built two years ago by one charity organization. It has rather cozy rooms for 4 – 6 persons, hotel room, the toilet and shower. But the building is very cold. The heating system there is electrical the cost of which is expensive and thus it works only 4 hours a day to minimize the cost of electricity.

The children sleep in clothes. Some of them suffer from enuresis because of cold. Absence of central sewerage system in Komarovka leads to closing and inability to use toilets and shower rooms.

THE OLD BUILDING

BEDROOM IN THE OLD BUILDING

THE NEW BUILDING

Now we draw your attention to the main, from our point of view, problem.

It is the toilet, to be more specific – its absence. Because of absence of the central drainage system, sewerage system, as well as absence of collector the toilets in the new and old buildings and at school are closed. The children must go to the toilet located outside. This structure is more like a prehistoric closet, almost ruined, one could be scary to step inside. What we can say about children, especially the smallest ones? The rotten old desks almost fall apart. Observing all this detdom.info team took a decision to build a heated toilet. We’ve collected money and first of all started with carcass of a new heated toilet located outside. But what is challenging in this task is the necessity of installing collector without which the normal functioning of toilets outside and in new building as well as shower is impossible.

We are ready to participate in future construction and other activities needed for orphanage. The further development of this project needs involvement of additional sources and funds. Detdom.info team will make sure to fully control and allocate funds appropriately in order to speed up completion of this project.

The commercial offer for construction of this collector is attached, and we call everyone who are not indifferent to future of these orphan children to join our initiative and to share not only responsibility but warmth of our hearts and belief in better future of their lives

THE OLD WC

CARCAS OF THE NEW WC

Contacts:

Curator Yuriy – (050) 381 92 38,

e-mail: khomenko69@ukr.net Curator Bogdana - (050) 413 14 00,

e-mail: bogdana@online.ua