Kiev Orphanage #12
Right to Personal
Space Project
$1,675.65 raised this year, as of
December 31,
2006!
PLEASE HELP US
IMPLEMENT THE MOST LIFE-CHANGING PROJECT WE HAVE EVER DONE FOR OUR CHILDREN!
The Right to Personal Space Project will not only significantly improve the
quality of our children’s lives, but will challenge the old Soviet principles,
on which the whole orphanage system is based – the principles of communal living
that leaves no room for the orphans’ personal space. Today, just like in any
other orphanage in Ukraine, children at Orphanage No.12 are deprived of privacy
and spend all their days in a group. The children don’t have their personal
rooms where they can keep their personal things, take a nap, do homework, read a
book or just be alone. Instead, the orphan spends his/her day in a ‘family room’
together with classmates and caretakers with no place to escape. The bedrooms
are designed only for sleeping at night and have no other furniture in them
other than beds. The children are not allowed in their bedrooms during the day. For the orphanage children, most of whom stay at the orphanage for many years,
this is the most difficult part of living in an orphanage. The Orphanage 12
administration and staff have decided to challenge the existing system and
provide each child with a personal space. We want to divide the orphanage
sleeping building into 5 separate ‘group homes’. Each group home will consists
of:
- big living room with a TV, couch, big table and a kitchen corner
- six children’s rooms (one room for just two children!)
- one staff’s room
- showers and toilets.
Each group home will operate as a separate family unit: the care takers will stay with the children 24 hours a day, the children will have access to their rooms throughout the day and will do their daily tasks individually rather than in a group; instead of group activities the staff will focus on individual work with the child, etc. There will be 8 to 12 children living in every group home. The children’s rooms will have beds, desks for doing homework, book shelves, and some other furniture. Although the children will continue eating in the orphanage cafeteria, the group homes will have access to a home-style kitchen to make their own meals at least one day a week. This is the most exciting and revolutionary project we have ever done. We realize, of course, that it may take us several years to implement a large-scale project like this. However, if we wait for the government to fund it, we may wait forever. That is why we decided to proceed as follows:
Stage 1 (June-July 2006)
Change the electric wires in the sleeping building.
Cost $10,980
Stage 2 (July-August 2006)
Decorate and furnish living areas in the group homes.
Cost $2,800 (5 group homes)
Stage 3 (September 2006 – September 2007)
Decorate and furnish the children’s rooms.
Cost $9,900 (33 rooms, $300 per room)
TOTAL: $23,680
Stage 1 is an absolute must for safety reasons. The electric wires were installed in the 1950s and can no longer handle the exceeding electricity consumption. If someone turns on an iron or an electric tea kettle the electricity goes out. In the pictures you can see what our outlets and light switches look like. Moreover, the bedrooms in the orphanage do not have any electric outlets - they were designed only for sleeping and the outlets were not made.
The cost of replacing the electric wires is $10,980. We realize that this is a lot of money but we can’t proceed without getting electricity done first. Stage 1 is the most important part of the entire project. The other 2 stages will be easier to complete as we plan to engage sponsors to help each group home individually. PLEASE help us make this very important step towards giving our children the privacy they are entitled to!
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Many thanks to all of the contributors to this project!
For more information, contact Bogdan.
Copyright © 2006 Life2Orphans, All Rights Reserved.