Dear Friends and Supporters!
Summer is a nice time of rest and vacations for most of us. We enjoy our summer days visiting our parents, grand parents, friends, relatives or take an interesting tour to other countries.
This summer was quite different for 2 young girls from Sure Start project we are implementing with your support. They had to deal with rennovation of their future accommodation. Partnership for Every Child has supported Alina* and Nina* in this difficult task.
Nina is 19 years old and lives in the city of Bila Tserkva (Kyiv oblast, Ukraine). She was born a happy child and lived with her family until she was 14 and was placed in child care institution. Her father died before and her mother could not cope and started to live antisocial life. Soon after being placed in institution her older brother and mother also died. When Nina was 16 she was taken under care by her aunt. This was very good news for her, but life made its joke - her aunt just used her and took over part of her property - a flat which belonged to Nina. Her aunt has also rented out the flat and it was almost destroyed when Nina came back from institution.
Nina has applied to centre of social services for support when she was just over 18. And then she was included in the project. Social worker with involvement of the young girl conducted needs assessment and developed after care plan. One of the issue was of course accommodation which needed total renovation.
In May 2012 Nina has started to implement her plan for renovation of the flat. With the assistance of social workers and other volunteers she has developed a plan and budget for renovation. During summer 2-room apartment was cleaned, contribution was made to re-establish electricity system, water supply system, installing new windows and doors. The next steps would be to make all the walls, ceiling, flooring and to renovate bathroom.
Despite of difficulties in getting necessary funds and a huge amount of work the girl is doing herself Nina is very optimistic in talking about her experience:
"My social worker is my blessing - together with her I managed to overcome all difficulties. This person made me believe in my better and bright future" :)
Alina is 20 years old and she left child care institution in Vyshgorodkyy rayon (Kyiv oblast, Ukraine). She gave a birth to her lovely son soon after leaving care. She lived in the house which belonged to her grandfather together with her husband and uncle. A fire accident has totally destroyed a house in March this year when Alina was pregnant with the second baby.
Social worker of Sure Start project has supported Alina and her family after this event. They were provided with all necessary humanitarian assistance immediately as well as temporary housing. Social worker has also provided assistance in all legal issues in order to legalise the property rights for the land for Alina.
Family has decided to build a new house to replace the burned ones. Local government has supported Alina's family and partly funded the building works. Alina has also applied to Sure Start project and we have supported her with some funds for roofing. Members of village community are also actively helping this young family as the most important is to keep family together and to eliminate any possible risk for children to be separated from their family.
All the renovation works are underway and we would be very thankful for your support for the project to continue our valuable support to young people in care and those leaving care.
Very soon - at the end of September - we will welcome new group of children in our Sure Start project who will be supported throughout a year to be ready for independent life.
Thank You for Support!
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* due to ethical reasons and policy names of beneficiaries are changed in this story.
Dear friends and supporters!
We are glad to inform you that care-leavers of Kyiv Oblast institutions who took part in weekly meetings of How to Be Successful Club, aimed on their preparation to independent life, participated in the End of Year Event.
We invited 40 young people from 4 pilot sites of Sure Start project on the 19-20th of May weekends to come to summer camp, situated in the nice, natural, open space, fresh-airy place not far from Kyiv. As a supporting team we involved young volunteers to do the activities with them. The purpose was to celebrate the completion of school life and symbolic transition to independent life.
Saturday morning all of us gathered in the parking area of the shopping mall, introducing each other. First activity, we prepared for young people, was quite challenging for them. They had to buy food with limited money in the nearby supermarket. Many young people have not yet had the opportunity to take the responsibility of buying food in big places like that for large group. During the shopping young people were very enthusiastic and eager to fulfill the given task and some of them took it as “competition”.
After the lunch in the summer camp we started the physical competition. Young people were wondering what will happen. Some were disorientated, insecure and stuck to their groups. But when introduced and motivated to be active, they became motivated to do the tasks with the group. They lost their initial reservation and shyness and soon the forest was full with loud crowds of children.
After the short recreation groups had to prepare their own supper with the bought food. Boys were gathering wood, girls bringing the food to the cooking place. Part of every group was taking charge of the fire, another part was making sandwiches and main dishes, supported by adults and volunteers if necessary.
The intention of all of these activities was that young people could interact with each other of different origin and the age. It was nice to see that all of them managed as a group to prepare different meals, which made them very proud of themselves.
The night was short and Sunday program started at 9 with common breakfast. It was challenging for facilitators to motivate young people to participate in more structured group activities, focusing on past experience and future expectations of graduates. The presence of former care-leavers from Ternopil as volunteers was very important, so most of graduates opened their hearts talking about difficult past and uncertain future.
After the lunch final gathering of all camp participants took place. Graduates one by one were handed with certificate of successful completing Sure Start program together with event photos and t-shirts. Vasylyna Dybaylo, Partnership for Every Child director, wished them prosperous, successful and lucky future and invited to the next meeting in near future.
"We had amazing time together, everything was interesting for us, especially shopping and cooking. I also liked that we had volunteers who also were like we - care leavers. Their stories were very useful. I think we need to stay for 5 days for such event" - said Olya, young person from Vyshgorod.
Young people were satisfied with participating in the event. Many of them were wondering why they could not stay for longer period and saying that 2 days are too little for them. Young people received a good opportunity to develop life skills in a friendly atmosphere and wished they could meet their new friends again.
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Dear friends and supporters!
A big thank you for your generous donations. We’re proud to announce that Partnersip for Every Child has raised $ 4615 from 83 donors, which meets GlobalGiving’s threshold for a permanent spot on GlobalGiving.com and in the GlobalGiving network. We are sincerely grateful—none of this would be possible without your help.
More importantly, we have raised enough money to cover a half a year of weekly meetings to prepare care leavers from the internats in Kyiv Oblast on their way to adulthood. Our grant will enable meetings to become regular programme starting in the end of January start of February, when the internat term starts up again.
The first meetings have been already held in Tarashcha and Bila Tserkva of Kyiv Oblast on Saturdays to help those children who are studying during their final year in the internat to find a job. The theme of meetings was discussed with children and considered the most appropriate and in line with interests of care leavers.
“The opportunity to engage in employment is widely recognized as an important element of social inclusion, - Nastya Anosova, trainer who works with children says. It is an important step in any young person’s transition to independence. It not only provides a person with financial independence, but also brings self-confidence and a sense of self-worth.
Our young people in care do not get the work experience opportunities their peers get through family and friends; therefore we’ve decided to develop a series of Saturday meetings devoted to future employment”.
Each participant of the training received a specially developed notebook where they could read more about employment, read short legal advices, and practical exercises. Children enjoyed working with a notebook and were asked to write a small essay about their future profession. Also during the training children passed test “Evaluate Yourself”, where they evaluated negative and positive sides of character and agreed at which characteristics they had to work out more.
Besides children watched a cartoon “Whom to be?” and were asked to name the professions mentioned there and divide them into 5 psychological types. Thus children learned what they will do if they chose a certain profession and learned about necessary skills for chosen professions. Also they’ve learned about the top professions for the next 5 years; how to search for the job after graduation, where they can apply or ask for help while their job search.
«Before the training I was scared even to think about leaving the internat and search for a job. I saw very few routine professions around me in real life and knew about the others only from TV or Internet, - said 16 years old Olya. I have never thought that before application to the job centre or writing a resume I need to make an assessment on my strong sides and psychological type. I found it easy and interesting. It’s very good that we’ve received notebooks with all necessary information and templates. I will use them for sure after my graduation”.
With this report I have posted photos from the educational sessions with care leavers in Tarashcha who take part in our project to help them to transit to adulthood. We will bring you more news on how other educational sessions to prepare teenagers for independent life have got going.
Meanwhile, we decided to organize an end-of the year event for children in May. We hope that we will succeed in organizing it, but you can help also telling your friends about our appeal or supporting us with a monthly donation. If you’re on Facebook, add the Gloval Giving widget.
Thank you for your continued support!
