Orphan children. Children's homes of family type:

Today in Ukraine officially there are more than 100 000 orphans. Really this number may be higher. In Transcarpathian region according to the datas of Regional Authority Responsible For Youth Deals the number of orphans are 1672. But the number of them is rising. During one and a half year period the number of orphans have rised by 200 people. The significant part of them live in big state internats. The main purpose is to achieve that these orphans get into families or family type homes. During the last ten years 25 family type children's homes were founded in Transcarpathia with 172 orphans in them. 7 of them were established and belong to the Roman Catholic Church.

1. Children's home of family type named after "St. Gabriel" in Velikij Bereznij.

The foundation of this home was organized thanks to sister Anastasija (missioner nun from Slovakia). The house was bought with the help of foreign donations. The family type children's home was established in 1999 by Natalija Revaj, Caritas director of Velikij Bereznij. After that she started to work as educator of this home. Her husband helps her in this. During 1999 and 2006 the house functioned first of all due to Caritas Znojmo (Cech Republic). In 2005 gas was led in the house. After 2006 state began to help and now they give the main financial backing. This support is enough for food, clothes and overhead costs of the home. Usually we have difficulties with renovations, building operations or extentions, vehicle and other cases. The situation is similar in other houses. Today there are 7 orphans here. Now the change of doors and windows is going on and lime-wash in two rooms.

2. Children's home of family type named after "Queen of Peace" in Velikij Bereznij.

The foundation of this home was also organized thanks to sister Anastasija. In 2000 this house was also bought by Caritas Velikij Bereznij with help of foreign donations but it was a small house and some exra rooms were added to the building. Functioning of the home was added to the organization "Smile as a gift" (Uzhgorod) who found a good educator Majdich Miroslava. Family type children's home was opened in 2003. Aid for operating of the home came from Czech's families through Caritas Znojmo. Like other houses after 2006 the state began to help it and now they give the main financial backing. Today there are 10 orphans here.

3. Children's home of family type named after "Nary St. Philip" in Mukachevo.

The foundation of this home was organized thanks to bishop Antal Majnek and Tegze Jozeph who was the director of St.Martin Diocesian Caritas in 2001. For this aim the Roman Catholic Diocese of Mukachevo bought a house which was not in living conditions. After renovation works in 2002 the house opened and a young married couple Burger Jevgen and Sussanna started to work as educators with 3 orphans. During six year period in this house there are now 8 orphans and also 3 own children were born. In 2005 the bishop got a microbus which he gave as a gift to the home. From the beginning the functioning was covered by many small donations of people or organizations mainly from Hungary. Like other houses after 2006 the state began to support it and now they give the main financial backing (food, clothes,overhead). During the last years Diocesan Caritas helps them in renovation of walls, making gallery (wider sliping rooms), developing plus toilets and shower cabins, change of roof. Now the building of four plus rooms in mansard part of the house is going on.

4. Children's home of family type named after "St. Francis" in Hust.

The foundation of this home was organized thanks to Kvascsuk Kornelia (educator of the home), p. Ferenc OFM in the name of Roman Catholic Church and Kozma Jozef director of Caritas in Hust. The house was rented for 25 years from the local government. From 2000 to 2006 the home was functioning due to foreign organizations and people. Now there are 10 orphans here and 2 own children. After 2006 the state gives the main support.

5. Children's homes of family type named after Family Lelekats in Rativtsi (near Uzhgorod).

The foundation of this home was organized thanks to bishop Antal Majnek, Biro Arpad and Maria family from Rativtsi and Diocesan Caritas. In 2003 they began making plans for the future Children complex named after St.Michael. There was planned to build four family type children's homes in this area and one rehabilitative centre. Building was sponsored from foreign organizations. State authority gave the furniture for the house. The home was opened in October 2006. State finances the functioning of the home (food, clothes,overhead) and also gave a microbus. Now there are 7 orphans. Their educators is a young couple. Parents of educators also help in work. The main problem now that the home has not got clean water and we have not enough money for buying a special filter.

6. Children's homes of family type named Family Juhasz in Rativtsi (near Uzhgorod).

Like the previous this home is also in the area of Children comlex named after St.Michael. This house also was build with the help of foreign people and organizations. Most of the work was done by family Biro Arpad and Maria. They organized and led the building process. Diocesan Caritas helped in writing projects and organization of part of donations.

The home opened in December 2007. There are 8 orphans and 2 own children. Now the state gives the main support for functioning of the home (like the previous house). Educators of orphans is a couple of middle age. Children comlex has difficulties with absence of fence for years.

7. Verbocki Ferenc and Beata Family-type children's home in Rativci (near Uzhgorod)

The third orphanage in St. Michael's Children's Home opened in 15th of December of 2009. The parents are Verbócki Ferenc and Beáta, a pair from Rativci. There are 11 children in the family, 2 own and 9 received. The children came from state orphanages. There are two brothers among them: one composed of five and one composed of three, and a single child, who lived in an orphanage since birth.

Finish of third house was mainly thanks to foreign donations. The controller of works were Bíró Árpád and his wife, Maria.

There are many programs for the children living in St. Michael's Children's Home, which make more interesting the everyday life: the children engaged Scouting, study folk music and go to dancing lessons.

8. Children's home of family type named after "St. Elizabeth" in Serednje

The foundation of this home was organized thanks to Duda Miroslav director of organization "Smile as a gift" (Uzhgorod). The house was given as a gift by a nun (white friar) for doing an orphanage in it. The house was renovated and expanded with another part of building. The main help came from Slovakia and Caritas Znojmo (Czech Republic). The home was opened in November 2007 but after a short time the young parents got frightend of longtime responsible work. After some months (in June 2008) another parents were found and they are already good for this task. Now there are 8 orphans in this home. One nun (Congregatio Jesus) leads pastoral care of the home. The state supports the main functioning costs.

The Roman Catholic Church tries to help orphans not only by establishing and supporting family type homes but to encourage families to adopt orphans. Adopting of children is a very burocratic process in Ukraine. For families who haven't got their own children or for other purposes want to adopt orphans it is very difficult or in some cases even not possible to arrange these things. There are several authorities which are responsible for it but often they explain controversial things. This year some friends of ours founded an organization (Future in our hands) and they help orphans by advertising adopting and giving enquirer families exact information about possibilities. If adopting depends on material things they tell us about it and we try to help. In October 2008 there were the first results of this activity - 2 orphans were adopted by one family.