Orphan's Hope Ukraine

OH work in Ukraine and Crimea

1. 2000 – 2014

   Crimea

   We started our OH work in Ukraine and Crimea back in 2002 and have been working here for over 20 years. Dmytro Malashko and Volodymyr Tverdenko were the directors and managers of this NGO there all these years. Liliya Malashko, Olesya Prytchenko, Tanya Fedoseeva|Shanina, Pavlo Melnykov and many others really helped us on a permanent basis. The main work was carried out in Crimea from 2000 to 2014 (15 years) and in Kyiv from 2015 to 2024 - it is already the 10th year.

   Mainly it was social work to overcome orphanhood on the streets of Crimea (2000-2001) and later from 2002 in boarding schools and orphanages all over Crimea. Also we serve in different children's centers, vulnerable families and internally displaced families as prevention work. Later it continued in Kyiv. From 2002 to 2010, it was mainly volunteer work in boarding schools and assistance to Ukrainian orphans to live in foster families at the churches of Crimea, Ukraine and the whole world. We made a lot of educational and preparatory activities for the Christian community related to the problem of orphanhood and professional social work regarding its solution.

   And since 2011, it was also the work of collaboration and training mentors for 100 orphaned kids and teenagers from Crimean orphanages, foster parents and employees of NGOs and churches in Crimea, and coordination of these activities until the end of 2014. We also had a support program for young people - graduates of boarding schools and foster families - student mini-grants for them and summer & winter resting activities. A lot of short-term missionary teams from the USA, Canada, and Europe came to Crimea to help and support our work with orphans.

   We have been building a sustainable model of smart social Charity with children and families and doing a lot of research and practical work with them. Steve Cassidy and his partners and staff, various volunteers and missionaries helped us a lot all these years from the US side. During this time, we purchased an office and Youth Center, a house White Lion for a foster family to live in. We had a good summer camp spot of land for nearly 100 teens on the Black Sea coast from 2000 to 2014 and made a lot of good activities there. We also distributed a lot of humanitarian aid to people around us and we had quite a large circle of vulnerable kids & teens who knew and trust us. Over the years, we have managed to influence thousands of children and teenagers, as well as hundreds of families and young people in Crimea. And we made really deep & holistic work for them.

2. 2015 – now

   Kyiv

   In 2015, we had to leave Crimea and move to Kyiv due to the annexation of our land by Russians and the war unleashed by Putin in Ukraine. This war has been going on for the tenth year. Many families and children suffered and left Crimea, Donbas and then Ukraine during this period. In Kyiv on a permanent basis we worked with two boarding schools, several children's centers and Family Clubs for vulnerable families and IDP youth on the right and left banks of the city. We involved a lot of volunteers from various churches, NGOs and universities of Kyiv and all over Ukraine, also other parts of the world to serve Ukrainian orphans.

   During all this time our focus was on more than 100 kids and teens on permanent support and about 1,000 children in general coverage, mainly children from at-risk families, whose parents we also actively worked with, as well as more than 100 orphans with status. We began to teach people about competent volunteer work with orphans: prevention and intervention, collaboration and anti-burnout, as well as the Case Management approach and Therapy based on relationships intervention (TBRI) from Texas Christian University.

   All these past 10 years we have interacted a lot and helped various partners throughout Ukraine in working with orphaned children, participated in various round tables, trainings, conferences, as well as in the bicycle race and movement "Ukraine without orphans", as well as the nationwide initiative Orphans Sunday - the Day of Prayer for orphans: large-scale informing of Ukrainian society about the problems of orphans. In Kyiv we also were able to influence thousands of children and hundreds of families of IDPs, as well as foster families and adoptive parents. We have a lot of stories and testimonies of changed lives.

   We have also implemented and adapted various projects, programs and studies to assess their needs and to help and support children and families in crises. And we also trained and accompanied people from churches and NGOs in their professional and integral social, pedagogical and psychological work, we learned with them sustainable management and modern approaches in working with children, youth and families. We see the importance of contributing to the young generation of Ukraine: in their awareness, values, spirituality, new approaches, skills, relationships and quality of their communication, as well as in their involvement in civil society processes.

3. 2020 – 2022

   The pandemic

   In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic began, and access to residential schools was limited for volunteers because of that. The maximum number of children was returned to their families in Kyiv and throughout Ukraine. If you look at it in context, the vulnerable families were mainly poor families who found themselves in difficult life circumstances and for various reasons could not take care of their children and sent them to boarding schools so that the child was at least fed and warm. Many of these families drunk a lot and lead an anti-social lifestyle.

   And it turns out that the state returned these children to their biological families. Also the first year of the pandemic was a year of mass unemployment and isolation. And that's why our mission was to help and support such families overcome the crisis and ensure that children remain in their families. From 2020 to 2022 we were able to help many families with children and support them in such a difficult period.

   
4. 2022

   Full-scale war

   Then after russian troops left the Kyiv we went to the territories that were under occupation and helped families with children and orphans. After the situation more or less stabilized, we started various clubs of support and development for children and teenagers, renewed training in IT courses for teenagers and graduates of boarding schools. In total, in 2022, we helped about 5,000 people with children, more than 150 of them were orphans.

5. 2023

   Back to Mayak

   In 2023 the war against “soviet russians” is still going on in Ukraine. And we have resumed our trips to Mayak boarding school 1-3 times a week where during the year we were able to take care of 100 children teaching them social skills, robotics and simple ways of communication and hugs. Children are very happy when we come to them and wait for us. We are stable and constant volunteers and they can rely on us as mentors, we also understand that children need a family even more. Our partners and donors are important to us so we thank everyone who has helped and continues to do so together with us and we invite you to join our work in the future years. And we will try to share our news with you on our website.