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Ukrainian orphans need help

Member

UPN

Charitable project: creative workshop for Kolomyia orphanage (Ukraine)

The pottery workshop that has been recently organized on the basis of Kolomiya orphanage (Ivano-Frankivsk region, Ukraine) is a regular social project launched by the charitable organization “Ukrainian Philanthropic Network”. As with its earlier project (organization of the candle workshop in Sniatyn orphanage for the children with special needs), our organization adheres to the principle that the children should be offered an opportunity of creative self-actualization and self-expression, filling up their leisure time in the first place, rather than standard presents, things or food.

At this time, there are 65 girls at Kolomiya orphanage. All of them have characters of their own and special needs, and all of them are being brought up by only one educator with ten years’ teaching experience, of whom the girls speak lovably and jokingly – “our educator is docile, she obeys us”.


On the one hand, the establishment is quite supported in terms of social safety, judging by the Ukrainian criteria – clean tidy rooms, food, and medical care. Speaking about leisure time of the inmates, some difficulties arise. Each of them has their own toy, but it concerns only those “who may have one”, because mentally challenged children not always can understand the purpose of this or that thing, and to prevent “fishing the toys out” of a water closet, the children are given toys under supervision only. Leisure time also includes festive concerts dedicated to each holiday (organized by the children themselves) and work therapy (cleaning of adjacent territories). Don’t you think there is something missing on this list?

We believe that the children lack an activity that could bring pleasure and fill up leisure in the first place. Most people can choose an activity to their taste, visit different hobby groups and circles, change jobs, or even their whole lives. The children with special needs are deprived of such opportunities. Of course, they cannot cope with all kinds of activities. But specialists assert that such children can self-actualize and develop through art. Art offers children with disabilities an excellent opportunity to hear, see, get to know and feel the surrounding world in its diversity.
That is why the Ukrainian Philanthropic Network organized a pottery workshop at Kolomiya children’s home. As a kind of art, pottery exerts a therapeutic effect on the psychic of a child with special needs, and is accessible for mentally retarded children. Furthermore, clay is a safe pliant material, which can become an inimitable work of art in the hands of a child. You and I believe that we will be able not only to develop new talents, but also to change in this way the lives of many orphans, who, by the whims of fate, were “allotted” with physical or mental disorders besides orphanhood.
The gift of every one of us, whose heart responded while reading these lines, is not just a donation, which will be “consumed” leaving no trace behind. Our gifts can be viewed as social “investments”. Everyone who makes a donation will be able to monitor the progress of our common cause.

All the donations received by the Ukrainian Philanthropic Network will be used for:
- the purchase of the necessary equipment (a small furnace for firing the handicraft wares), tools and materials.
- salary and compensation for trip expenses of the qualified psychologist who holds classes with the children at the workshop; compensation for trip expenses of the volunteers (artists, rehabilitators, psychologists, etc.)
- implementation and development of other artistic rehabilitation methods of work with children who are being raised in orphanages for the children with disabilities.


The Ukrainian Philanthropic Network plan to exchange experiences obtained from clay work with other orphanages for children with disabilities.


More details can be found on the website of the Ukrainian Philanthropic Network via Google.


For reference:
Kolomyia children’s home is the establishment of the third type of specialization for the girls with moderate mental retardation and relatively preserved physical characteristics.
 
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