CRIMEA CARE PROJECT: “River of Joy”

We are very grateful for all the donations we receive for our projects in Crimea, to enrich quality and comfort in life for orphaned and abandoned children in the towns and villages there.

Ukraine is moving forward and the regime and rigours of the old soviet style institutional life is something that the government is wanting to change, hoping to reduce the numbers of children in each Schola Internat from 200-300 to no more than 50. However, none of these children have had and many are never likely to have the privilege and security that a family environment and network of relationships can provide.

Historically, education for those children in institutions has been minimal and definitely not geared towards nurturing independence, personal excellence or academic prowess. Village children even less with many 10, 11, 12 year olds still never having attended school. Though government concern is growing and the legislative wheels for improvement are beginning to turn, Crimea is still decades away from the attention and assistance it so desperately needs now. That is why Humanitarian Aid is so vital.

In 2003, deep in the heart of rural Crimea, we bought two small farmsteads and a field for a new child care initiative, namely family-type children’s homes. While longer term plans for our “River of Joy” project include the acquisition of two more adjoining farmsteads to complete our vision for a communal conference / church centre as well as workshops to offer a range of after-schools master-classes / apprenticeships, at the present time we are building a distribution centre to handle essential Aid items and are developing a care package to help support local families with the desire to rescue and adopt abandoned children in their vicinity. What will eventually become the main administration building is currently the base from which RoJ runs a summer programme for village children annually.

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