Love & care for abandoned babies Ukraine & Moldova

One element of the abandoned babies programme that your kind support has helped is in the children’s ward we fund in the  children’s hospital.

All children that have been abandoned are taken here and our volunteer Lyudmila  looks after them until they go the the orphanage or can be reunited with their guardians.

In the picture there is a baby girl called Ivanna. She was brought into the ward from her mother who did not look after her.  She weighed 3kg at the age of 6 months. She could not lift her arms and legs and she also suffers from pathology of the nervous system.

In the short time that Ivanna was in the hospital ward, Lyudmila looked after her every need and she also prays for all children in the ward.

Ivanna soon stopped crying for the first time and peacefully fall asleep thank to Lyudmila’s care. Of course her future will not be known and it may be a very harsh and difficult childhood if not fostered into a loving home. But, for the time she was with Lyudmila she had the love and care that every baby needs and deserves and it is scientifically proven that a child'd brain development will be substantially affected by the way they are cared for in teh early years.

Thank you being a substantial part of this life transforming work.

ChildAid's work in Ukraine often reveals shocking accounts of lives of babies and children who may not be officially "abandoned" but are living early years where abandonment could be better for them!

Ivan, Natalya and Ira have the same father but two different mothers. The fact that they are alive today is a gift from God. Their father lived for himself. Ivan’s mother died from alcoholic hepatitis when he was a baby and he lived happily with his grandmother. His older brother lived with the father but frequently visited the grandmother as he was always hungry – he cried when he had to go back to his home but the grandmother could not take in another child.

When Grandma died Ivan had to live with his father. He can remember this as being the most horrific year. The father was regularly violent. Drunk, the parents frequently collapsed naked, and then the father’s friends beat the children and touched them all inappropriately. This sexual and violent abuse came to an end when social services took the children away.

Ira was dangerously under-weight and was found lying unconscious in a sandpit in temperatures of 40°. The parents were too drunk to even stand when the children left.

But their life of abandonment could have become even worse. It was a blessing that the children were not sent to a State orphanage but to one of ChildAid's partners. Today, all three children are safe and lovingly cared for in our family foster home. Ira has begun to speak. Natalya has learnt to read, write and count and sings very well. Ivan is making good progress at school. But, their lives could have been so much worse. Children from broken homes or who are sent to state orphanages in Ukraine are vulnerable to being exploited for human trafficking and abuse. It is reported that several state-run institutions have been allegedly complicit of being wilfully negligent in the sex and labour trafficking of children in their care.

Your support enables more children to be saved from abandonment and exploitation - and the works must go on and on, but it can only do this with support such as yours.

Thank you