Fifty Children Found Home At Social Care Center
Last week Father’s Home (children’s social care center) celebrated the fifth anniversary of its foundation, that is, the moment when pediatrician Roman Korniyko decided to take custody of three waifs. At that time there was neither a beautiful mansion at the village of Petrivske, Kyiv oblast, nor a clear idea of how to build a home for homeless children under our current conditions. There only was a burning desire to change the life of street urchins and a firm belief in its success. Wife Natalia became Dr. Korniyko’s trusted assistant. A sandwich shared with a homeless boy provoked the idea of setting up a soup kitchen for the homeless children. A three-room apartment was rented, where hot lunches were served and an opportunity was given to communicate not only with peers but also compassionate adults. Then life itself showed what to do. And now a beautiful freestanding building, already overcrowded, provided shelter to fifty youngsters.
Almost a year has passed since our newspaper’s correspondent and Father’s Home residents visited each other. Now the children smile more and feel less inhibited, with some faces bearing an expression usually typical of children raised at home and very well cared for. That day Mr. Korniyko had come back from a business trip, and the kids were happy to see him again. They dedicated a new song to him at a festive concert. They sang that the home was not just a roof and walls but a place where you return and where nobody will ever reproach you for anything. In the presence of guests, the young people awarded the title of Friend to others of their benefactors: company general managers Terry Pickard (Pickard and Co.), Martin Nunn (White Shandwick International), Gotthart Klingan (Billa— Ukraine), and the newspaper Den / The Day. The title was officially certified by a children’s sticker and a gift in the shape of a toy dog symbolizing true friendship.
Once a year, on the New Year’s Eve, the Father’s Home holds a parent’s day. As a rule, almost all parents accept the invitation, but many children are sometimes disappointed, for some adults show again how far they remain from a normal life. Moreover, the residents feel terrible if they are not visited at all. Father’s Home teachers do not seek to tear the youngsters from their parents: on the contrary, even in the most difficult cases, they help the inmates to love and forgive their natural mothers and fathers. Olena Machkivska confesses she will always take care of her very sick mother. While Olena’s older sister, now 30 and with a family of her own, has refused to help the one who nursed her in infancy, Olena and a home teacher have recently whitewashed the woman’s house, and other center employees bring the lonely lady food and medicine.
The core of the center’s educational philosophy is to simultaneously love the children and be demanding. The main things demanded from the educators are boundless patience and love for the children. You can well imagine what kind of nerves must be in a person who takes on responsibility for somebody else’s child. It is not so easy to make the latter want to change his/her life, want to live rather than survive, and, finally, to keep him/her from running away and getting back to the previous “free” existence. “We raise street kids to live a normal life in several stages,” says Ruslana Yakovenko, a Father’s Home employee. “We don’t need to look for waifs because everyone who deals with this problem know where they live. The youngsters tend to contact those they trust, that is, those who are strong, keep their promises, and are incapable of betrayal. Being so vulnerable and distrustful, they have invented their own ways of checking outsiders for possible contacts. If they believe in you, this means the first stage has been accomplished. The second stage is the desire to meet their needs for gentleness and kindness. This done, they will become glued to you, and you will wish you had more arm to hug them all. The third is the most difficult stage. Street kids are special in having no wish to overcome any obstacles they might encounter: they tend to go to any lengths to avoid solving problems. The main thing in working with them is not just to keep them warm, fed, and clothed but to instill in them the hope and belief that things can change for the better, and, for this to happen, they must, first of all, make an effort on their own. Nobody is ever taken to Father’s Home by force. Some flee, only to come back and then run away again. If this happens several times, we have to return the children to their parents, thus admitting our own failure to get the result we wanted. But these are isolated cases. Most of those who chose Father’s Home get used to it.”
One more building is being finished in the center’s yard. It is planned to fill it with not only new children but also elderly persons deprived of family warmth and requiring care. Thus, Father’s Home will like a usual family host people of the older and younger generations. Dr. Korniyko attaches great importance to contacts between the generations and their taking care of each other. Moreover, initial steps are being taken to implement the project of anonymous adoption. Everyone who wants to help a homeless child is far from always able to render this help in full. This project envisions continuous communication (perhaps only correspondence) of a specific child with those who help him, regardless of how much aid is given. “In addition,” Korniyko says, “Father’s Home has developed four branches in recent years: three in Kyiv oblast and one in Zhytomyr oblast. They are somewhat like foster families with about ten children in each. The only difference is that these institutions, like the one at Petrivske, not only care for their charges but also try to help them reunite with their parents. We consider staying at such centers as a temporary thing, but we never set any deadlines. Everything depends on how long a child needs this.”
Education remains a very difficult problem, for some of clients begin learning to read and write only in their teens, and we have to draw up a special system of individual teaching. The center’s deputy director for education, Anatoly Budliansky, says, “It is most effective when an individual syllabus envisions covering the material for three grades in one year. The kids study very intensively without weekends or vacations. A long drawn-out teaching process only contributes to laziness and poor results. Strange as it may sound, the elementary school curriculum is the most difficult to do. Subjects are taught consecutively, not in parallel. They also have to take into account their short attention spans and their rapidly getting tired. The senior children’s curriculum includes specialized courses: typewriting and cooking for girls and automobile driving for boys.”
Last summer the youngsters worked in their own garden, thus partially providing themselves with vegetables. They also plan to acquire a horse to plow the vegetable garden, as well as goats and piglets. Whenever possible the villagers offer food aid, and their fears about the negative influence of Father’s Home children on theirs have proven unfounded: they have made friends, spend time together, and visit one another.
Sponsors have also been found. For example, the Clearwater Company always supplies the center with water, Ukraerorukh never fails to provide financial assistance, some small firms constantly transfer more or less adequate funds to the center’s accounts. Father’s Home is also known in and receives aid from foreign countries. On its fifth birthday, the project received a very unusual gift from Billa (this was done for the first time in Ukraine, while in Western Europe and the United States it is a tradition). Six Father’s Home competitors had ten minutes to put whatever they liked in their shopping carts. The winner, Vadym Slipchenko who managed to fill his cart faster than the others, was awarded a video recorder. The center was also presented with food worth about 10,000 hryvnias, while the winner was able to give his personal prize to his large family.
Although recently Ukraine has witnessed various new ways of helping needy children, we still lack information on how to render this assistance more effectively, as well as the know-how to work with street kids. Moreover, those who address this problem are very little aware of each other’s experience. Also intending to make concerted efforts toward the solution of the homeless children problem is the international Children in Danger Alliance of non-governmental organizations founded in late October this year. Roman Korniyko, president of the Father’s Home international charitable organization of Ukraine, was elected its chairman. The Day will subsequently keep you informed about the alliance’s activities and further endeavors of Father’s Home in its future issues.
