ORPHANAGE INFORMATION
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The “Orlyonok
“ Orphanage is situated in Nikopol, Dnepropetrovsk region.
It is home to around 100 children at any one time, now it holds 82
children aged from 7 days to 4 years old. The orphanage specializes
in central nervous system pathology and mental disabilities. It was
built 52 years ago. The building the children live in is 25 years
old. |
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|
The dedicated staff of over 130 includes 65 doctors, nurses, senior
nurses, 30 teachers, 35 masseurs, cooks, grounds men, caregivers,
and others. They take care of the children as they would their own,
and prepare them for their life ahead.
The orphanage is also involved in gathering professional workers who
generally come after graduating from the institutes. They like
children, enjoy taking care of them and don’t want to leave the
orphanage.
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View of
Nikopol orphanage |
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ORPHANAGE
NEEDS
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I called the
orphanage director Galina Vasilyevna Mareyeva to inform her of the
donated funds, and to discover the orphanage needs. She came back
with the following list:
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|
1.
Baby formula "Malysh" (the orphanage has
100 children, but the director didn't specify how many packs of
formula they need, all she kept saying was "as many as you can
afford"). |
 |
2.
Fabric for sheets and blanket covers (cotton and flannel - about
1000-2000 meters) |
| 3.
Typing paper - minimum 5 packs |
4.
Carpet - 2 pieces (width 2m, length 3m, preferably green, should
cost
about 200 hryvna). |
| 5.
Toys - balls, blocks, other learning toys. |
6.
"Dry swimming pool" (with small balls instead of water)
for children
with CPR. (I don't know if we can find one here, will try to find
out
soon).
|
 |
| 7.
Chairs for children (small wooden) - minimum 50 pieces. |
| 8.
Wallpaper (light color) - 40 rolls. |
| 9.
Aluminium pans - 30 liters-1 piece; 20 liters-3 pieces. |
| 10.
Cereals: farina, buckweat, & rice |
| 11.
Sugar |
| Explaining that we can’t afford both “Dry swimming pool” and all
other items, we agreed on “Dry swimming pool” to be provided
from other donation funds and, finally, we worked out the list of
the orphanage needs that would benefit the lives of the children
living in there. The director explained that their orphanage is the
only one in the region where they feed the children with the baby
formula “Malysh”, so they need as much as possible. That’s why
the baby formula is first on our list.
I found out that in the shop it costs 7.50 UAH (1.42$) so I
called to “Liberty International” company and they offered the
baby formula for 6.31 UAH (1.19$). Since they offer the wholesale
prices it’s reasonable to buy from them.
|
The proposed
list is:
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#
|
Items
|
Quantity
|
Price |
|
|
|
|
|
|
1
|
Typing paper
А4
|
25
packs
|
309
UAH (58.30$)
|
|
2
|
Carpet
|
2
pieces
|
432
UAH (81.51$)
|
|
3
|
Baby formula “Malysh”
|
240
packs
|
1578 UAH
(297.74$)
|
|
4
|
Fabric (cotton, white)
|
600 м
|
3375 UAH
(636.79$)
|
| 5 |
Fabric (flannel, white)
|
500 м
|
3656.25
UAH (689.86$)
|
| 6 |
Wallpaper |
40 rolls
|
864 UAH
(163.02$)
|
|
7
|
Buckweat
|
150 kg
|
162.50 UAH (30.66 $)
|
| 8 |
Sugar
|
500 м
|
444.38
UAH (83.85$)
|
| 9 |
Aluminium pan (30 l)
|
1
piece
|
32 UAH (6.04$)
|
| 10 |
Aluminium pan (30 l)
|
3
pieces
|
60 UAH
(11.32$)
|
|
11
|
Mccano
|
5 pieces
|
180 UAH
(33.96$)
|
Total: 10724.50 UAH (2023.49 $)
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The Liberty
International Company has delivered all the items to our office on
June 27. The currency
rate had fallen from 5.33UAH to 5.2UAH for 1$ but the Company sold
the goods for 5.3UAH currency rate.
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PLANNING THE HUMANITARIAN
TRIP
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|
The trip
was planned on June, 29. Nikopol is in Dnepropetrovsk region, 550 km
from Kiev and it takes about 6 hours to go there by car.
We
planned to leave in the early morning Saturday 29 June to be in
Nikopol in the afternoon.
So at 4
am the van was loaded up and we started our trip.
The
driver, Nikolai, decided to take the shortest way that turned out to
be the longest one, and it took us 8.30 hours to do the journey.
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NIKOPOL ORPHANAGE
HUMANITARIAN PROJECT
 |
We arrived at 12.30 pm on Saturday afternoon, and were shown to the
Deputy Director’s office (since the Director, Galina Mareeva, had
the week-end off). Having introduced ourselves, we showed the list
of items we had brought.
The Deputy Director, Anna Vasilievna, who has been working here for
7 years, was waiting for us and was really glad to see us, as were
all the other orphanage staff. They also helped us to unload the
van, and were grateful for all the items.
They remember Neiheiser and Wise families, their adopted children, and are really glad for them. The orphanage workers
were especially impressed when they learned that one child had had
surgery. |
|
They described some of their problems to us. The daily ration of a
child is approximately 2.40 UAH, which is very little, and as a
result they have problems with food supply: lack of juices, fruits,
vitamins. Because of poor financial support they spend more money on
baby formula “Malysh” for little kids than on food for the elder
children. They
are also doing repair works at the expense of the government, so one
of the most acute needs of the orphanage as of today is funds for
the repair works and building materials, so they really appreciated
the wallpapers that wonderfully matched the carpets.
However,
there are certain needs that can never be fully met. The older
children constantly need shoes and tights, and the younger ones need
baby formula.
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Children enjoying donated games |
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 |
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| Nikolai unloads the supplies |
And more supplies.... |
And more.... |
| They
are very proud of their clothes and medical supplies, but they do
need more romper suits. In the orphanage they have only a 2-seat car
so it is a real difficulty to get children to the hospital. In
winter they have problems with heaters, and they would like to build
a boiler-house that would cost about 60,000-70,000 UAH. They would
also appreciate a drier because in summer they dry the linen outside
but in winter they do it in the building on the handrails. They
would like to have the dry pool for the disabled children and some
quartz lamps as well. |
| In the orphanage there have been some cases of
adoption by the orphanage workers: about 10 cases for the last 7
years. Last year 45 children were adopted by the foreigners (USA,
Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and other countries) and 10 children
were adopted by Ukrainians. Sometimes children come back to the
orphanage to find out the reasons & circumstances of their
abandonment.
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The outstanding features of the orphanage are
good attitudes of the staff to the children, their care, good
medical service, and the professional level of the staff.
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They appreciated the donation greatly and
they also asked about our next visit!
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COMMENTS
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If you want
to be a part of our charity programs and share your heart with Ukrainian
orphans, please check with us at our_kids@earthlink.net
to find out about upcoming humanitarian trips and how you can make a
difference in the world.
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Over
6 years experience & 300 completed intl. adoptions
